BALDWIN COUNTY – Attention anyone with a closet: those shoes and clothes you no longer want are desperately needed to fight the human tragedy of global poverty.

That’s the message being delivered by Baldwin County residents and Soles4Souls, which are hosting an ongoing drive to collect used shoes and clothing to help the poor.

The final drop off date will be on October 12th at The Shrimp Festival event in Gulf Shores. Schools, churches and local businesses are encouraged to start collecting themselves and drop off shoes and clothing at the Soles4Souls booth at The 2014 Gulf Shores Shrimp Festival.

The shoes and clothes collected in Baldwin County will be delivered to Soles4Souls, an international anti-poverty organization that monetizes used shoes and clothing to create sustainable jobs and fund direct relief efforts, including distribution of new shoes and clothing. 15 cents of every pound collected will benefit the Baldwin County School System.

Founded in 2006, Soles4Souls has distributed more than 25 million shoes in well over 100 countries.

“We know that Baldwin County is working hard to help us end the cycle of poverty by collecting shoe and clothing donations and we couldn’t be more proud of their efforts,” Soles4Souls Chief Executive Officer Buddy Teaster said. “Thank you Baldwin County, in advance, for banding together to change the world.”

Soles4Souls – which holds the highest rating from nonprofit watchdog Charity Navigator -- will convert every used pair of shoes collected from the community into a value-added social currency to achieve positive change, both humanitarian and economic. Most of the reusable shoes will be distributed to microenterprise programs that create jobs in Haiti and other poor nations. The resulting revenue will help fund the free distribution of new shoes in the U.S. and overseas.

Among its relief programs, the organization has distributed over 200,000 new pairs of shoes to help Philippine victims of Typhoon Haiyan.

According to Soles4Souls, the connection between poverty and shoes is well-documented.  The World Bank estimates that approximately 400 million children worldwide – more than the entire U.S. population – live in pronounced poverty.

Millions of these children will grow up never having had a pair of shoes, resulting in significant ramifications for their health and well-being.  Lacking proper footwear, countless children will not be able or permitted to attend school.

And tens of millions of these poverty-stricken, barefoot boys and girls will be infected with soil-transmitted parasitic diseases like hookworm, causing lasting suffering and lifelong debilitation.

The organization is asking individuals, churches and businesses across Baldwin County to set up donation sites for residents to bring their unwanted shoes and clothes before the final collection at the October 12 Shrimp Festival.

For more information about getting involved, contact Tracy Swack with Soles4Souls at tracys@soles4souls.org.