MADISON – Madison is known for its volunteer spirit. Columbia Elementary School fourth-graders stepped it up with donations of shoes to Inside-Out Ministries.

Parent Karyn Murphree designed a bar graph for Columbia fourth-graders to tally donations for the Inside-Out shoe drive. (CONTRIBUTED)

Students in Karen Jump’s and Alyson Pedroso’s classes were reading about starting a business that helps others. “They learned about the TOMS shoe company that donates one pair of shoes for every pair bought,” Jump said.

The fourth-graders decided to collect shoes for the “Calling All Shoes” campaign, organized by Inside-Out Ministries founders Larry and Deborah Ward. Inside-Out collected 480 bags of shoes for undeveloped countries.

The Columbia students met their goal of 300 shoes in one week. They counted, added and marked daily collections on a bar graph, created by parent Karyn Murphree.

“Students learned ways to help others in our community and how companies today help other countries,” Pedroso said. From home, they brought in used and worn out shoes.”It didn’t matter what they looked like or smelled like. Also, some faculty members donated.”

The donated shoes ranged from toddler to adult men sizes. The haul included boots, tennis shoes, flip flops, flats and sandals. “All kinds of brands were collected,” Jump said. “Students had heels poking them from the bags as they counted and bagged them. They also commented about the smell as they bagged and counted shoes.”

Fourth-graders commented on their outreach. Thomas Nguyen said he “learned by donating things you can help others. I learned not many people in Africa have a lot of things.” Noah Kliesner realized that “old shoes can become new shoes.”

The shoe drive showed Jessica Gonzalez that “helping people is really important.” Ria Sethi said, “Shoes that are broken up or dirty can be fixed and given to the kids that don’t have shoes.”

Jump and Pedroso were proud that students worked together to label the bar graph, count shoes and graph daily donations. “Students looked forward to seeing how many shoes they collected daily. We enjoyed seeing their excitement over this project,” they said.

For more information, visit inside-outministries.org.