Put Yourself in Their Shoes, Give Them Yours

Ecstatic, schoolboys in the Jordanian village of Al-Ghour Al-Safi take a New York minute to try on their new shoes, donated by the American Community School of Amman’s Loving Laces program (photo: ACS Amman).

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Marian Wright Edelman, president and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund said, “If you do not like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it, one step at a time.”

These words came to me last fall, as I read a news story in The Jordan Times about a father who sent one son to his school’s morning session and the other to the afternoon session because he could only afford one pair of shoes for his boys. The family lived in the Jordan Valley, about 40 minutes from Amman and near the luxury hotels of the Dead Sea. This story struck a chord with me.

Like many schools, the American Community School of Amman believes in service learning. Our school undertakes many projects throughout the school year, ranging from building Habitat for Humanity houses abroad to helping Syrian refugees in Jordan. We also foster a sense of obligation to our immediate community, since poverty is common in Jordan. In a school whose students do not generally feel the effects of poverty in their daily lives, giving shoes to low-income, local peers provided a natural avenue for service learning.

My library colleagues and I developed the Loving Laces reading program in November 2012. We focused on our elementary and middle schools, since those students have fewer service opportunities and could empathize with children of a similar age, who simply needed a pair of shoes to make life easier and more comfortable.

We introduced the project during library time, posted signs throughout the school, and made a display. I visited each elementary classroom, and the middle school language arts classes. All month long, during library time, we read books to students about local and global issues including poverty, hunger, and homelessness, and the duties of society and the individual regarding acts of charity and community service.

Students also received a reading log and signed up sponsors, who agreed to make a donation for each book read. The children loved the idea of using “their” donations to help others their age who are less fortunate.

We held a few other activities as well. For our movie night, the price of admission was a pair of new or gently used shoes. Some children brought two or three! We also encouraged our Internet-age children to visit websites that highlight service action, such as the World Food Programme’s Freerice.com, Oxfam America, Share Our Strength, and Habitat for Humanity.

Over four weeks, 55 students participated in Loving Laces. They read 350 books, and raised 1,000 Jordanian Dinars (US$1,400)! I then arranged with shoe distributors to buy shoes at a 60 percent discount. Armed with 500 pairs of shoes, six of the most involved students, two parents, and I went to the village of Al-Ghour Al-Safi in the Jordan Valley. The Arab Potash Company, based in the valley, provided transportation and lunch.

We distributed shoes in three schools, and our students were shocked to see a school without computers, a library, or anything on the walls. They were not used to such a sterile learning environment, and they immediately grasped the impact of their contribution.

Loving Laces left a strong impression on all of the ACS participants. Several children told me they realized that they do not have to wait for adulthood in order to help others—they can help make a difference now.

Ms. Abu Ghazaleh is the librarian at the American Community School of Amman, Jordan.

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