The Big Sandy Mountaineer has offered their back room to be a collection site for the Billings-based Provision International. People with a footwear surplus can donate their used shoes, boots, heels and sandals. The group will then re-route those donations to a handful of developing countries as part of its "Share-a-Pair shoe drive. The Billings-based nonprofit has sponsored the program since 2012, and also works with missionary groups while coordinating donations of food, clothing, blankets and other goods to a handful of developing countries across the globe. Lance Lanning, the group's president, said he was on a mission trip in El Salvador in 2012, helping to build a school, when the idea for the program was first seeded. Barefoot children kept running throughout the construction site, he said. "A little girl stepped on a piece of rebar, and she ran it through her foot. She didn't have any shoes, " Lanning said. "I got home and looked and there were probably 8 to 10 shoes there-like all of us have." He said a board member suggested a used-shoe drive that eventually grew into "Share-a-Pair " later that year. Now in its ninth year the program has collect somewhere in the ballpark of 100,000 pairs of shoes, Lanning estimated. Those donations have manly come from within Montana. Around 95 percent of the shoes are used shoes, He said. "There's a lot of used shoes that we don't think about that we just discard, that can be a blessing for someone who doesn't have any shoes, " Lanning said.
Lance Lanning is a Big Sandy boy. The Mountaineer would love to collect as many as possible. Lance went on requesting support for the shoe drive, "Living in America, it is hard to imagine that there are actually people in the world who do not have even one pair of shoes. We are seeking donations of footwear for people of all ages. The shoes do not need to be new, but we do request that they be in usable condition. If you have shoes that you no longer wear, or like many of us, have forgotten them in your closets, would you consider making a donation?"
