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Viewfinder: Mendota Elementary Students Want Your Old Sneakers

Third- and fourth-grade students at Mendota Elementary launch a "Green Sneakers" drive.

Mendota Elementary in Mendota Heights is looking for a few good sneakers. Used sneakers, that is.

Third- and fourth-grade students of teacher Julie Weisbecker are collecting used sneakers in a “Green Sneakers” project. The sneakers they collect will be sent to people in Africa.

“We really liked the idea of collecting shoes for people in Africa and all around the world,” said Laura Skemp, a fourth-grader at Mendota. “Because we know that a lot of people in different places don’t have as much shoes as we have. And we have all these leftover shoes. So we knew that other people needed them.”

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The project has multiple benefits, said the Mendota students. It gives sneakers and tennis shoes to people who need footwear, while at the same time keeps them out of American landfills.

Gently used sneakers can be brought to the school at 1979 Summit Lane, during normal school hours, 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. The sneakers can be worn, but should be free of holes, tears or rips.

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For each pound of sneakers the students collect, they will earn 50 cents. The Mendota Elementary students are competing with other non-profits for three cash prizes ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 for the most sneakers collected.

Three Mendota students, Joseph Juliette, Laura Skemp and Ellie Elander, presented the “Green Sneakers” idea to the Mendota Heights City Council in April.

The student estimated they have collected about 100 pounds of shoes, said Juliette, but judging from the size of the collection bin, and the several bags of sneakers already collected, they have considerably more than that.

The shoes will be packaged as "mitumba," a Swahili term which literally means "bundles," and is used to refer to plastic-wrapped packages of used clothing donated by people in wealthier countries and then shipped to Africa. One major receiving port for mitumba is the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam. From there the clothing is widely dispersed into the interior of Africa.

The drive started April 23 and runs through Friday, May 13.

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