Media Alert/Sneaker Drive on Channel 10

I got a late tip that the sneaker drive is being profiled on WCAU Channel 10 at 6:15 P.M. tonight.

UPDATE: 7:30 P.M. Great story! See the Morrisville High School National Honor Society in action. Congratulations to advisor Elizabeth Glaum-Lathbury, junior Michael Leather, 8th grader Keivanna Lacey, junior Nichole Kamann, and the rest of the middle and senior high honor society members for a job well done.

Maybe you can bring a pair of sneakers to the board agenda meeting to prove to the naysayers on the board that people out there still care about the great job Morrisville kids are doing inside and outside of the classroom? The next agenda meeting is Wednesday April 9 at 7:30 P.M. and the next business meeting is April 23.

Video and Still Pictures or if you want to help

Students Step Up, Send Sneakers To Africa

POSTED: 5:57 pm EDT April 7, 2008
UPDATED: 6:55 pm EDT April 7, 2008

MORRISVILLE, Pa. -- Bucks County is a long way from Africa. But some students there with big hearts are taking a big step to bridge the borders with, of all things, old sneakers.

In Morrisville Middle/Senior High School classroom, you might not be able to tell what lesson the students are learning from a bunch of old sneakers, but the lesson is one of compassion.

"All my friends know me for having a lot of shoes," Michael Leather, an 11th-grader, said. "I always like to have great shoes."

Leather is learning that not everyone can afford great shoes, clothes or even food. He is one of several students gathering old sneakers to help people living in African villages.

Keivanna Lacey, an eighth-grader, said she knows about poverty in Africa firsthand. She visited Chad with her family three years ago during the sweltering summer.

"We have air conditioning and everything, and people there were just fanning themselves," Lacey said.

French teacher Elizabeth Glaum-Lathbury read about the program called the Perpetual Prosperity Pumps Foundation in a magazine.

"Lot of the kids come back from Christmas, and they have a new cell phone, and they have a lot of gadgets," Glaum-Lathbury said. "I think it's important for them to understand that not everyone has everything."

The donated shoes are refurbished and sent to Ghana. That's where they're sold, and the money from the sales helps families in Africa.

The school's goal is to collect 600 sneakers by the end of the school year.

That will give a family intensive training and resources in organic farming for a year to help sustain them for decades.

"I think it's a rewarding experience because we're able to collect shoes and give hope to other people in different countries," Nichole Kamann, an 11th-grader, said.

Kamann said she hopes someday she can see her footprint on the world.

"I really want to go over there and see what kind of a difference we can make," she said.

In that sense, the school lesson is really a life lesson.

For information on how you can donate, click here.