DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) --- An Iowa woman is running barefoot across the United States to raise money to provide shoes for needy children.

Rae Heim, 18, of Carroll, started her cross-country trek in Boston in April and hopes to reach Huntington Beach, Calif., in October.

The Des Moines Register caught up with her this week in Iowa as she crested a hill near Victor in 91-degree heat.

Heim stopped to talk but wasn't out of breath. She said she started running barefoot after breaking a toe last year and shedding her running shoes for comfort. Shoes now feel like dead weight to her, although she wore them through New Jersey, where broken glass and nails littered the highway, and dons them on gravel roads.

The bottoms of her feet are like slabs of leather. When they start burning in the heat, she puts on toe socks.

"We are born to run barefoot," Heim said.

She told the newspaper that she hated to run and even dreaded rounding the bases while playing softball.

"It was like a punishment," she said. But then Heim realized that people thought she couldn't run, and she set out to prove them wrong.