Ron Hunter
Purdue Basketball Coach
Shoeless Campaign
For Ron Hunter, a successful college basketball coach at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, his recruiting trip four years ago to Lagos, Nigeria, was life-changing.
"I was absolutely amazed about the number of people that lived in poverty, the number of children that had no shoes," he said.
So, he teamed up with Samaritan's Feet, a charity dedicated to giving shoes to poor children. And to raise awareness about the lack of shoes in the third world, he agreed to coach a game barefoot.
But not only did he go barefoot. So did the fans. Together, they collected tens of thousands of pairs of shoes.
Since "World News" featured Hunter in January, he has received more than 250,000 pairs of shoes.
"I don't think there is a day that's gone by that I haven't received some pair of shoes," he said. "My house actually looks like a shoe warehouse."
In June, Hunter, his assistant coaches and some of his players delivered the shoes to children in Lima, Peru. Hunter noted that some children as old as 9 or 10 didn't know how to tie them because they've never had shoes to tie.
Learn how you can help at
www.samaritansfeet.org
