About us

 

How it Started

 

From a young age I always had a strong desire to help people,especially children and also to be a source of change in my community.

The Mercy Shoe Fund is a non profit community based organization with a desire to serve and provide impoverished children with new and used shoes.

The Shoe Fund started informally in late 2007 because of an inner drive to give back to the community and assist the needy in Kenya’s slum and rural areas.

One morning while heading to town, I saw pupils from a local school(Tumaini la Watoto) on the Kiambu/Kamiti road walking to school with worn out shoes, others were barefoot. This got me thinking about the many pairs of shoes I owned and did not wear regularly. I am a person who buys shoes for the fun of it and it saddened me that these young ones did not have a decent pair of shoes on their feet.

I decided to convert my shoe fetish into a noble endeavor and establish a shoe charity. Together with a friend (Miss. Taprad Muthoni), we pooled our savings and purchased several pairs of new and old shoes,we collected our own shoes and from family,that totaled to over 90 pairs, that we donated to the needy students from that school. The smiles that lit up on their faces upon receipt of the shoes touched a chord in our hearts and we knew there and then that the Shoe Fund was the right thing to do.

However, we realised there is a much bigger need for footwear and other basic necessities. We cannot walk away from it. Together, bit by bit, we can embrace the Swahili saying “haba na haba hujaza kibaba” and help all those in need of decent footwear and other basic necessities.

Through TMSF we can do just that!

During our donation events we also talk to the kids by encouraging them to work hard in school,advice them on career paths,advice them on dangers of using drugs, peer pressure, help them recognize their talents and maximize on those talents while they are still young etc.

The Mercy shoe fund desire is to see these kids grow up and be something good in future, and return the same gesture back to their community and Africa at large.We want to start impacting their lives while they are still young.