Sole Hope Party

How should I say this delicately? My friend, Kate, loves to cut. I know!! 

She loves to cut out things with scissors!! Phew!

You're probably having the same reactions to her obsession as I did. At first, it's kind of awkward and weird. Then, it's funny. But when you see what she did with her discovery, I hope you'll also find it wonderful.

She hosted a Sole Hope party.

Essentially, Sole Hope is an organization that provides shoes to African children who's feet are infested with jiggers. There is a couple of videos on their website that you should take a few minutes to watch. 

Sole Hope's working model is to take our abundance here: yards of fabric we have accumulated in our crafting/non-crafting moments,

old jeans we will probably throw out,

and emptied milk jugs that we maybe recycle along with old tires and inner tubes and turn them into shoes! 

I have looked for ways to re-purpose worn out jeans on Pinterest and there is nothing on there that compares with this!

After watching the video, Kate briefly explained our jobs for the night. We traced patterns with Sharpie markers on the jeans and then cut them out. 

The jean pieces are used to make either the inside support of a fabric covered shoe or as a denim shoe itself.

Hacking into pairs of old jeans was a little daunting at first but went quickly enough.

The same pattern is traced onto fabric but with a ball point pen since Sharpie would bleed when wet and cut with pinking shears.

The fabric part was a little slower because of the cutting detail. You must cut to the line but not on it, sort of like a seam allowance, and pinking shears are just not as nimble as regular fabric shears.

The milk jugs (oh, there's a picture of some milk jugs in the corner of this picture just in case you forgot what they look like!) are also cut to make heels.

Then all the individual parts are assembled together into pairs of shoes. This was the assembly/control room. 

You'll have to go to the website to see what the sewn together shoe looks like but here are a few shoe parts all done. They will be sent off to Uganda where Sole Hope has trained widows to sew them together. 

This group of ladies cut parts for over 35 shoes in just a few short hours!

This is my friend, Kate, in the blue with her mom. Kate would rather be cutting that pose for a picture but I can tell you that her heart was absolutely bursting with happiness for being able to do something she loves and sharing it with her friends and loving on others. Bursting!

While these shoes use all found materials, there is still a cost involved and money is always welcomed. 

From all that I can tell, Sole Hope is on the right path. They weren't just emotionally moved to what they saw in Africa but answered yes to a tough and life changing decision. The model of seeing strengths and capabilities of the widows and others, coming alongside to teach and help them provide for themselves and others- not just giving a handout of shoes- LOVE that! Using resources we already have- AWESOME! A way to help without feeding our own consumerism- THE BEST!!

So what can you do?

Get onto their website and read through it. 

Host a Sole Hope party.

Donate money.

On this page, there are 4 other ways to get involved if you want to.

If you're on Instagram or Twitter follow them. Right now if you re-post/re-tweet with #cultivategives and #solehope, $1 is given to Sole Hope.

Kate, when you told me you loved to cut, well, I thought it perfectly you. Why not? God has gifted us all differently and this is your dealio. Thank you for letting us share it with you.