NEWS
175 Pairs of Sneakers, And Still Collecting
Just some of the sneakers we collected.
Thank you to our News of Davidson readers and to the wider Davidson community.
Several weeks ago we announced a crazy idea to recycle old pairs of sneakers. More importantly, we noted that any proceeds from this effort would be donated to the Davidson Veterans Monument Fund. At the core of the effort, we planned to have a tent set up at Town Day to collect sneakers.
Please help News of Davidson support the Davidson Veterans’ Monument by donating your old sneakers.
Early on, we also reached out to CrossFit Davidson. They offered to take several collection bins and encourage their members to donate.
We also reached out to members of the Davidson Area Running Team (DART). A huge word of thanks to Dave Munger who has single-handedly collected dozens of pairs of shoes from his fellow runners.
As a result of these additional coordination efforts, we were able to collect more than 50 pairs before last weekend.
We also need to thank Dave for his email asking if we were coordinating with Community School of Davidson (CSD) since their annual 5K race would be taking place before Town Day.
After making contact with Jill Cashion at CSD, she offered to email anyone already registered for the 16th Annual Summit Spartan 5K.
We set up a sneaker collection bin at the race registration table, and the bin overflowed. And as runners were starting to cross the finish line, we received the word that the decision had been made to cancel Town Day based on the threat for extreme weather mid-morning.
What we learned is that a lot of people don’t want their old pairs of sneakers to spend roughly 60 years decomposing in local landfills. Even with the weather-caused cancellation of Town Day, donations to the various donation bins topped 175 pairs of shoes.
If you are one of those people, you are in luck. News of Davidson will keep collecting sneakers. And we will continue to make the Davidson Veterans’ Monument the recipient of all funds raised in the process.
Sneaker recycling bins are located at Town Hall (inside the main entrance on South Street), CrossFit Davidson, and the Davidson Branch Library. We also have a bin in the Arts and Crafts Room at The Pines, for residents of The Pines only.