The Shoe Bank

The Shoe Bank had just one goal when it was founded in 1989 – to put comfortable shoes on a few hundred homeless men living on the streets in downtown Dallas. The program today provides shoes for twenty thousand people every year – primarily children, both here and abroad.

Here's how it works. Good used children's shoes, men's and women's athletic shoes, and men's dress shoes can be donated at schools, athletic facilities, and retail stores displaying Shoe Bank depositories. The shoes are carefully inspected and then delivered to local social service agencies for distribution.

Every year, thousands of children in countries around the world receive shoes only because kids from the Dallas area take advantage of an opportunity to give through the Shoe Bank. Our children help make an important relief effort possible – and we fulfill an equally important mission by teaching them to care for those less fortunate.

How you can help.

• Make a tax-deductible cash donation
• Volunteer your time
• Hold a fundraiser
• Donate comfortable shoes

Mike, with special program coordinator Lorenzo Daniel.. Lorenzo, a third grader at Heritage Elementary in Highland Village, organized the most successful neighborhood collection of the year for the Shoe Bank in 2007

National Recognition

• In September of 1991, The Shoe Bank was officially recognized by President George Bush.
• In November of 2000, Shoe Bank founder Mike Barringer was awarded the prestigious George Washington Honor Medal from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge.
• In 1997, the Sprint Volunteer Connection Program recognized Mike's outstanding community service.
• And in 1995, Mike received the JCPenney Golden Rule Award.

Congressman Ralph Hall, presenting Mike Barringer with a plaque and insert from the Congressional Record commending The Shoe Bank program.

---

 

U.S. Army Captain Ann Collier collected shoes from the service men and women she's stationed with in Iraq and then shipped them home to the Shoe Bank for distribution. Amazingly, some of these shoes were then shipped to an Air Force Sargeant in Afghanistan and given, as a gesture of goodwill, to the locals who were helping to build her base.