If Shoe Fits, This Group of Good Souls Gives It Away

Three hours after the first families were admitted inside the 28th Street YMCA, the line continued to spill out to the curb. Restless children played on a bicycle rack.

Inside, the scene was near bedlam. Rosa Campbell, trying to down a quick snack of Cheetos and Orange Crush, stood surrounded by a human ring.

“Where do we sit down?” one weary father asked while carrying his daughter. As Campbell turned to answer, a toddler in his mother’s arms reached out and filched some Cheetos. After the child’s fourth dip into the bag, Campbell noticed.

It may have taken her so long to notice because Campbell characteristically looks down when meeting new people. “I’m a foot watcher,” said Campbell, president of Aunts & Uncles, a private, nonprofit organization that provides new shoes to children whose parents can’t afford to buy them.

The St. Louis-based organization distributes about 14,000 pairs of shoes a year. Many of those shoes are donated by manufacturers and retailers. Contributions from individuals and businesses allow Aunts & Uncles to purchase additional shoes.

After nearly 20 years of operation in St. Louis, Aunts & Uncles is trying to gain a foothold in Los Angeles. About 500 pairs of shoes were handed out at the YMCA last Saturday.

The shoes are not given away. There is a $5 registration fee per family, regardless of whether the family has one child or 10. Campbell said the fee, which is waived for those who cannot pay, helps defray the organization’s costs.

But that is not the fee’s only purpose. Campbell said giveaway programs extract a high price--not in money, but in the dignity stripped from the recipients and the dependency fostered. Many of the people served realize their dependency and resent it, she said. “A lot of people walk into the door hostile. That’s what the system does to you.

“I tell them, ‘You’re going to have to help us help you.’ ”

Aunts & Uncles is not hypocritical on the subject of handouts and independence: the organization receives no government or United Way funds. Campbell said private donations and volunteerism gives Aunts & Uncles an extra dimension of warmth. “It’s people to people,” she said. “These shoes are a sign that someone cares.”

The decision to take an independent course means Aunts & Uncles has not been critically hurt by the cuts in federal funding to many organizations that serve the poor.

But Aunts & Uncles has felt the effects, even though they have been indirect. “The demand on us is much stronger,” said Campbell. “We are picking up a lot of slack.”

Most needed are shoes for 5- to 8-year-olds. “The hardest thing is when a family comes in--five, six or seven children--and we can fit everybody but the littlest one, and he can’t understand why everybody gets shoes but him,” she said. “We get them the shoes eventually, but if they’re really heartbroken, we give them the box.”

Aunts & Uncles does not distribute shoes that do not fit. Campbell knows how traumatic it can be to have shoes that are ill-fitting or no shoes at all. She remembers receiving a new dress for the annual Easter parade in Memphis 40 years ago. Her older brother, Lawrence, went to the parade while she stayed home because she had no shoes. When he returned, she took his shoes and went to the parade. A few minutes later she returned home, crushed by the taunts of other children making fun of her wearing the too-large shoes, she recalled.

“It was one of the most traumatic incidents in my life,” she said.

Lawrence Albert, her brother, was apparently moved by the incident as well. In February, 1966, he mortgaged his dry-cleaning business in St. Louis to provide start-up capital for what would become Aunts & Uncles.

Ten years later, Albert was forced to suspend Aunts & Uncles when both his business and health failed.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Campbell had a comfortable paycheck and a glamorous position as Hugh Hefner’s personal secretary at the Playboy Mansion.

Then, in 1978, she left Los Angeles (where she had lived for 18 years) to resurrect her brother’s broken dream.

“I thought I’d stay for six months,” she said, but soon came to realize that “something was missing in my life. It started with a certain restlessness I couldn’t explain.”

From her years here and exposure to the wealthy, Campbell said she learned that fulfillment does not automatically come with wealth. “Some of them were the most miserable people you’ve ever seen.”

Campbell said she worries about the future of Aunts & Uncles but is comforted that her daughter, Stephanie Wright, has taken over operation of the Los Angeles chapter.

Aunts & Uncles has become like the family business, said Wright, who grew up in Los Angeles and knew little about her uncle’s crusade in St. Louis.

She has since learned firsthand that many children do not own a decent pair of shoes. “They come in with the shoe tops flopping,” she said. “It is like they don’t even have the soles anymore.”

Some parents keep their children home from school because they lack shoes, Wright said. Campbell said she hopes to duplicate Operation Footwear in Los Angeles, a program that has St. Louis teachers, counselors and school administrators identify and refer children in need of shoes to Aunts & Uncles.

Most of the parents served by the organization are unemployed or on disability or welfare, said Wright.

Though she works full-time, Wright said she receives no regular salary and draws a check only after the rent, utilities and other costs for the organization’s 54th Street office are paid. “I can’t remember the last time I was paid,” she noted.

Much of her efforts are directed toward “getting the word out” that Aunts & Uncles exists. She also wants to make certain that Aunts & Uncles is not mistaken for a shoe store. “We aren’t here for families that want to pick up an extra pair of shoes. This is for kids whose feet are hanging out.”

The basketball court at the 28th Street YMCA certainly looked like a shoe store. Four benches stretched across half court.

Children--mostly toddlers and elementary-school age kids--lined the bench. Beneath them, shoved under the benches, were the scuffed, broken carcasses of shoes that had outlived their usefulness.

Volunteers scurried around with foot-sizing instruments. Against the painted brick wall at the end of the court were tables chock-full of shoe boxes. Signs above each table denoted shoe size.

There was a wide variety of shoes: suede loafers, traditional canvas tennis shoes (both high- and low-top, though the high-tops went fast), nylon athletic shoes with Velcro fasteners, black dress shoes and slip-on leather loafers with tassels.

“We try to give them a choice,” Wright said.

“Mira! Mira!” a small girl shouted to her mother, tissue paper still clinging to one of the shiny black shoes she held high over her head.

A few feet away, Evola Rothschild was waiting to pick out shoes for her 19-month-old daughter, Reina, and 9-year-old son, Curtis. Her 12-year-old sons, Maurice and John, were given permission to pick the shoes of their choice.

Rothschild, who is collecting Aid to Families with Dependent Children, said her children each have a pair of shoes “but this will make their feet look better.” She said that with a second pair of shoes “they won’t wear them down so much so fast.”

Rothschild, who is working toward her high school diploma and plans to become a licensed vocational nurse, said she does not expect to be a regular at Aunts & Uncles.

As she watched the children leave, Campbell said that each pair of shoes gives a child a little bit more self-esteem. “You can see the change in them,” she said. “They’ll come in all drawn up. When they get the shoes, they stand tall.”