Written by Samantha Holschbach
On April 8, students will find ample opportunities to bare their soles from 3 to 6 p.m. at Harding’s Barefoot Festival, designed to raise funds to buy shoes for poverty-stricken children in El Salvador.
“It heightens awareness of what it’s like for a child who doesn’t have shoes, to go without shoes for a day and see what it feels like,” sophomore Zach Daggett said of the festival’s activities, which are done primarily while barefoot.
Campus groups such as the Jesus Project, Harding Walking Society and Multicultural Student Action Committee are sponsoring the festival, which will feature a barefoot obstacle course, foot—painting sessions, slack rope, live music, a barefoot walk and an open mic on Harding’s front lawn. A money drive will also take place in the student center before the afternoon festivities. Participation in each activity will cost between $.50 and $1, which will directly benefit El Salvadorian children. The festival deliberately coincides with TOMS Shoes’ “One Day Without Shoes” event, in which TOMS encourages all students to spend part of their day, even just a few minutes, barefoot to experience how children in poor regions live.
As the festival’s focal point, students can order white TOMS shoes for $40 that can be customized April 24 at a TOMS “Style Your Sole” party during the Multicultural Student Action Committee’s International Food Festival. During the party, art students will decorate students’ TOMS shoes according to their personal tastes.
“TOMS sells artist-designed shoes online; that’s kind of the idea behind it,” Daggett said. “You can go and get your own custom pair of shoes that you had designed to your style.”
The Jesus Project will use all proceeds from festival activities to purchase shoes for about 250 El Salvadorian children. Composed of Walton scholars, the Jesus Project has helped these children for 13 years, visiting them annually in summer to furnish them with supplies. This summer’s emphasis on a shoe drop is a new development.
“Whatever we raise here [in Searcy] we bring to the kids, anything they need,” Jesus Project member Lucero Gutierrez said. “We figured out that they need shoes — sometimes they don’t go to school because they don’t have shoes.”
Gutierrez said one of the Jesus Project’s main goals is for El Salvadorian children to graduate from high school. As such, providing the children with shoes enables them to improve their school attendance.
Members of the Jesus Project said they feel compelled to help underprivileged children in El Salvador because of the many blessings they have received to be scholastically successful.
“We have everything we need to study, be successful in life,” Jesus Project president Jose Rafael Elvir said. “We have a different perspective on life than what those kids have because of the area where they live, the limitations they have. It’s part of loving others with the blessings we receive.”
El Salvadorian children are not the only beneficiaries of the Barefoot Festival. For every pair of TOMS shoes purchased at the festival, a pair of shoes will be donated to a needy child, no matter if that child lives in El Salvador or another region of the world. TOMS’ mission of increasing awareness and aid for barefoot children will also gain a greater stronghold on campus as a result of the festival.
For more information about the Barefoot Festival, join the festival’s event on Facebook (event name: “Barefoot Festival”). To order a white pair of TOMS to be customized, post your shoe size to the event wall. Shoe orders and money will be due April 8. To date, roughly 80 pairs have been ordered.
Whether students purchase TOMS shoes or participate in Barefoot Festival activities, their actions will brighten the lives of El Salvadorians.
“We’re giving them a better future,” Elvir said. “We’re getting them through high school, and they can then get a degree in college and do something better in the future. It’s about impacting lives so that those lives can impact others.
