Ivy Tech shoe drive provides water for Uganda

Your spare shoes could provide clean water to families in Uganda.

Nursing students at Ivy Tech Community College-Lafayette are holding a shoe drive for WaterStep's Shoes for Water program, which sells the donated shoes to an international exporter, using the profits to fund clean water projects in developing countries.

Last fall, Ivy Tech's Students for Nursing Excellence program, which involves nursing students in community service, collected 1,150 shoes, which went to provide clean water for Kaabowa Village in Uganda.

"Hygiene is everything (in the medical field) and you can't be clean, you can't be healthy without clean water," said Bill Sudlow, co-vice president of the excellence program.

Sudlow noted about a majority of illnesses are caused by water-borne diseases in Uganda, which lacks the infrastructure necessary to provide clean water to residents.

"We're giving them the opportunity to get water that may not be as clear as (in the U.S.), but it's at least cleaner and it doesn't have the diseases in it that it would normally," said Emily Sleek, secretary of the excellence program. "So it's just to prevent those diseases that are going to make them sick and eventually kill them, and we don't want them to die."

WaterStep funds projects in 26 countries in North and South America, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, according to the organization's website.

"It's just a way to give back. It's not all about me. It's a bigger picture and nursing is all about that anyways. You're sacrificing a lot of yourself for others and this is just doing it on a bigger scale," Sudlow said. "As a matter of fact, it's a huge scale."

How to donate

Donate to the WaterStep's Shoes for Water program via Ivy Tech from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to noon Saturday until April 11 at the Ivy Tech Community College-Lafayette, 3101 S. Creasy Lane.

Also: Students will hold a drive-thru shoe drop-off from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 11. They will collect shoes near the circle drive at the entrance to the Ivy Tech campus.