Having worked alongside, Crepe City, Crep Protect and NIKE, sneaker charity ‘Heeling Soles’ is literally healing souls around the world. Donating brand new shoes to places like Africa, Jamaica, the US, the UK, and most recently to refugees in France, these guys tell us here at Trapped more about what they are all about and how it all started.
Heeling Soles as a charity, when did it start and how long has it been going on for now?
We officially started in February but we had been collecting the year before so 2014. Yeah but we officially opened in February this year 2015.
What was the motivation behind starting Heeling Soles?
Our grandma was very much into giving back to the community in Jamaica, so we wanted to do something that was quite accessible and easy to do. We thought, people would quite happily give up a pair of shoes as opposed to donating money and so it started like that. Chris’ quiet well known in the sneaker community, so basically we just asked the sneaker community to help give us trainers, and it just sort of rail-roaded into you know bigger things. Chris goes on a lot of travels and so he sees a lot of different types of people and places and a lot of poverty. So we all felt that we could help people in a very simple way.
As a charity, how easy is it to get access to the deprived areas in countries- you guys have been to Jamaica, North Africa & most recently France, How easy is it to, as a charity to have safe access to these poverty driven places?
It’s not hard to get access, I mean in different places around the world, outside of Europe especially, there’s people wanting to help you. We try to partner with local organisations or local projects that are already going on so that we do not come across as “Oh we are coming the UK” kind of like storm in there and act like we are going to save these people. Like there’s already amazing people in different places who are doing amazing work, who don’t have the resources or the publicity that they should have and so we want to be able to support these people. It’s much better that we have local partners who kind of know where the need is greatest, and we can work with them and try to help them so it’s a mutual thing.
In terms of the sneakers and the clothing that you guys give away, how much of that comes from friends and how much of that genuinely comes from social media and marketing?
It started off at the beginning by going through the sneaker community and having a stall at UK sneaker event Crepe City. So a lot of those donations came from people who knew Chris, through Instagram or Facebook or whatever. They came that way and donated, but since then we have also put out requests through local schools etc. We are currently having a collection done at schools, so that involves the general public donating. They are donating as we speak. I would say it would be about 30/70 of the public than friends. I mean we know a lot of it comes from The Sneaker head community, that’s where our support is.
What makes you guys stand out as a charity, compared to other charities?
We are trying to do something different. Like, people who hit on hard times or are victims of poverty in places around the world are used to receiving donations such as food, clothes, shoes etc. I think what we have done is different. What we give is not just an old discarded pair of shoes that people don’t want, it’s actually a decent pair of trainers. I think that sort of surprises people in a way, for example when we have rocked up in a car and emptied out the car and people have seen the donations they are like, “Raaahh… OK we heard someone was coming with shoes and clothes but didn’t realise they were Jordans!”.
Some of the areas that we have tapped into have been where people who wear a lot of shoes or people are doing OK for themselves, who donate good stuff to us and that’s what’s amazing. A lot of new shoes, brand new stuff that hasn’t even come out—samples and stuff– and people are rocking them in different places around the world and that’s been amazing to see.
On a more personal note how does it make you feel when you’re involved in these things and you are meeting the people first hand? Have you got any stories to share?
It’s very humbling, and you always go “yeah, yeah I’m privileged” or “I am blessed” but you don’t realise how much. I mean you see homeless people but you don’t realise ‘till you start giving, until you start seeing the joy on their face because they have got a pair of trainers that somebody would want, like it’s exactly like I said, people are giving away brand new Jordans that the kids have never worn. And for us the most touching thing was when we took our kids out, in London for Christmas eve and our own kids were touched by it and the youngest son was crying because he was like “I hate seeing people like that, I hate seeing them living like that mum it’s so sad”, and that to us was touching because you don’t know how blessed you are.
We’ve seen a guy in Jamaica glue a top of a converse to a flip-flop so he could walk around. This other guy, we saw ties his shoes a specific way so people wouldn’t rob him. Like it’s unbelievably humbling. We, as Heeling Soles, are privileged because you get to see where your product goes. Like, people can see on our website where the shoes go. You know we all work hard, everything is paid by us, and it’s all our own money. We get no cash donations so that makes it even more humbling.
You guys have had some crazy, amazing support, from people early in your journey. Tell us about the collaboration with Oxford Street’s NIKE Town.
Yeah we have to say a massive thank you to the people at NIKE Town. To be honest this whole thing has been a learning curve and there’s been a lot of politics but through the journey you find people who are in certain places, certain positions, who through their own will, will want to help you. Fortunately enough Will Smith ( Sneakerscube Manager) is one of those people who met us at a previous event, we told him about our charity and he said he would see what he could do to try and help. He then got us down to give a talk in store to the staff and kind of carried on pushing to eventually get an actual collection going on in NIKE TOWN for shoes which lasted for six weeks.
How many shoes did you get through that?
We haven’t collected them all. So far we collected around 300-400 pairs, and there’s probably double that still waiting to be collected so like close to probably a thousand pairs. And that was big for us for NIKE TOWN to say they want to support us.
We have seen on social media that High street shoe retailer OFFICE also donated heavily to Heeling Soles. How did it come about and what exactly was the donation?
We done a collaborative project with the people down at the Brixton Soup Kitchen a charity that helps the homeless with food and support, and through that project we got contacted by OFFICE who said that they had 500 pairs of shoes to give us! So we were like “Yeah!” of course being a family start up business with no official storage at the time, there was a bit of fronting about where we were going to store 500 pairs of shoes. In the end we had to store them in one of our family homes, cos we were like ‘how big could it be?’. So when the delivery came, we looked out and saw a truck, like a big truck. And a delivery guy standing outside with a pallet full of boxes of shoes. There was about… 15-20 boxes all about 40-50 pairs in each. The delivery guy had to wheel it out and he was like “Oh yeah I would stay and help you know but the trucks blocking up the road ennit so…” which meant a lot of shifting and hard graft but bwoy, that was a wakeup call for space!
As well as wanting to do something for the community in general, you have also reacted to crisis situations such as the Syrian refugees that are currently in makeshift camps in Franec. Talk to us about your decision to do that.
We saw a Facebook post of a friend of a friend who was doing a drive to France to help out with aid for the refugees, so we said we would help out. We had just done a collaboration with Bristol Sneaker event Sneakers Box and so we had a massive box of trainers plus an additional box stored with family so we were like let’s get involved. We gave the Lady we contacted through Facebook some for the refugee camp and Chris went out there to help out.
How was it, going out there?
It was hard-core man. It was sad. It was a mixture of things man, a lot of emotions. It was very hard to see people living the way that they were living so it kind of echoes about what we said about being blessed. People are hungry, like you can see it. To see people having to queue up with a bag to get a couple of cans of peas or cans of carrots and a packet of noodles. To see your fellow human being living like that is hard and to see people without clothing, without shoes, without a shelter and the basics of life is really difficult. But at the same time there was a lot of good stuff and good people that we met. A lot of people doing good work. Some people who are not part of any organisation at all, ordinary people who just wanted to get in a van and take food over there and we met people who came from England, who just went to Sports Direct and bought loads of tents, jackets, boots and stuff like that and just came over to just give it out and that was really good to see.
We touched on the fact that presently Heeling Soles is self funded and now You guys are having a Sole Soiree fund raiser. In NYC, Tell us about that.
The fundraiser is going to be in New York, as the other half of the company is based in New York, and they decided it was the right time for them to try and get some funds raised and to create more awareness with corporate companies and investors to get us out there raise the awareness of the Charity.
What will the Sole Soiree consist of?
Well there will be music, food and drink as well as and as a raffle. The aim of the evening is to raise awareness but also to urge people to get involved in our initiative and learn about our future plans get help to build us up and to make it easier for us to have funds to get to places in a quicker time than at the moment that we can manage. We do need investments, we do need people to donate so we can continue our work and we are hoping that this will generate enough to enable us to do those things. The evening itself will be a good opportunity to have fun and enjoy yourselves in a relaxed atmosphere.
Anything you want to add?
We have a lot of shoes, so if there are other projects who see this, you know, hit us up on the website or email us. And if other projects would benefit from working with us we are more than happy to help. If people in book shops want to have us in there or have an event or drop box or if people have got a place in their place of work and want to do a collection day where we come in and talk or are up for that- get in touch- we are up for it. Just need to holler. Even instead of having a cake day at your work place have a shoe collection day that we can come collect that day. An office shoe party! Or if anyone wants to like help us pay for storage space it would be great! But we really need storage! That should be the title ‘Storage please!’
Check out the Heeling Soles website for more information on how you can get involved.
You can also Check out our recap on Heeling Soles’ recent charity Auction with UK sneaker protection brand Crep Protect, which was hosted on Friday 6th November, here.
