‘Shoe Lady’ visit brings happy feet
They came to the gym in small groups, straining against the restraining hands of their teachers and hopping up and down with excitement. They stared at several tables piled high with brand new shoes and socks.
The footwear was provided by Harriet Jacobson, the “Shoe Lady.” She brings new shoes to low-income children and Wednesday was her annual visit to the Early Childhood Education Assistance Program at Trentwood Elementary.
With 108 children, this day was Jacobson’s largest. “I brought every shoe I had in those sizes,” she said.
Four-year-old Tasia Sirmons was one of the first to arrive. She had her feet measured and was taken to a table filled with shoes in her size. She held a pair of flowered slip-on shoes against her feet. “They fit me,” she said.
But the shoes were a little too big. The next pair was a little too small. The third pair, white sneakers with Velcro straps, fit just right. “They’re pretty and I want to bring them home,” she said. She picked a pair of bright blue socks to take with her.
Jacobson’s effort, which costs about $8,000 a year, is funded largely by members of Unity Church. She hit the Black Friday sales for cheap socks and shops the clearance sales at Payless Shoes, where she buys all her shoes. “I get what I can get when I can get it,” she said. “They give me an extra discount. You’d be amazed what prices I get sometimes.”
Dogs walk to new shelter
If every dog has its day, then Nov. 30 was a historic date for our four-legged friends in Bonner County.
Under a gray and gloomy sky, roughly 300 rain-soaked volunteers gathered at the former address of the Panhandle Animal Shelter in Sandpoint, where 45 enthusiastic canines greeted them. The group – and their leashed companions – embarked on a three-mile trek with police escorts to the new 27,000-square-foot home for lost, abandoned, neglected or abused animals throughout the county.
“It was phenomenal,” recalled Diana Dawson, a Panhandle Shelter board member and dog-walk attendee, adding that the day resulted in several animal adoptions. “Everyone arrived soggy. Soggy but in good spirits. We had a blast.”
Located on Kootenai Cutoff Road in Ponderay, the sprawling, L-shaped facility was donated by the Wild Rose Foundation, an organization created and run by the founder of Coldwater Creek.
Featuring 100 kennels in eight separated dog wards, a puppy pen, six cat habitats, a state-of-the-art sanitation system and rooms for holding events such as pet training classes, the Panhandle Animal Shelter is better prepared to handle the roughly 1,300 animals it takes in every year.
Also in the building is the thrift shop, which is the animal shelter’s primary revenue source through sales of everything from discounted clothes and appliances to books and furniture.
“The old building, it was absolutely overwhelmed and rundown,” said Panhandle Shelter president Kris Contor, adding that the old site had low public visibility since it was away from main thoroughfare. Built in 1988 solely through community support, the original shelter was only meant to house about 25 dogs and 25 cats.