Spokane Gives Heart And Sole To Rwanda
Old shoes, new shoes, pink shoes, white shoes. Boxes and bagfuls of Spokane shoes are being donated for the refugees of Rwanda who walked home this fall without shoes - or much of anything else.
It is the second international effort to begin with a relief worker in Africa and his father in Spokane. The same men organized a drive that sent 2,400 basketballs to Rwanda in February.
When Brad Rothrock, of Catholic Relief Services, said refugees pouring back into Rwanda desperately needed shoes, his dad, Rocky Rothrock, responded: “I’ll get you 25,000 pairs.”
The Spokane Realtor printed up fliers and tucked them into his Christmas cards. He talked to friends and folks in his investment club. He and his wife, Lolly, talked to about 50 neighbors at the Woodfield Homeowners’ Christmas dinner.
The next morning, bags of donated shoes appeared on their porch. The couple brought the shoes inside. Within hours, another porchful had appeared.
“It’s like Santa is bringing the shoes, I don’t know where they’re coming from,” said Lolly Rothrock. “There’s no note, no name, no one wants to be thanked. They’re just happy to do this.”
In two weeks, 1,500 pairs have been donated. The family hopes to draw 10 times that number and as much children’s clothing as possible by Jan. 15.
“All of us can do a little something and touch somebody across the world,” said Rocky Rothrock.
The couple’s second son, Brad Rothrock, 38, is a senior worker with Catholic Relief Services in Rwanda, where the 1994 genocide left 500,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu dead.
Last year, wanting to promote reconciliation through sports, Rothrock mentioned to his dad that he’d like some athletic gear. His family sent a bag of basketballs and then, with the help of Hoopfest, soccer players and others, shipped 5,000 pounds of new basketballs, athletic shirts and soccer balls from Fairchild Air Force Base. The first “Hoopfest Umuhuza’ was held in Rwanda in May.
That story and a profile of the younger Rothrock are scheduled to be featured on NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw tonight at 5:30 on KHQ-TV.
It will provide the senior Rothrocks their first glimpse of their newest grandson, Jonas, whose mother, a Swedish nurse, Brad Rothrock met in Rwanda.
Rothrock currently works providing relief food, crop seed and housing in Kigali. Since November, thousands of the 750,000 refugees who fled the country two years ago have walked back home, many of them barefoot.
The Rothrocks hope to deliver the shoes - as they did the basketballs - through a Department of Defense program that delivers humanitarian aid on routine military flights.
Rocky Rothrock has contacted dozens of businesses, law firms and organizations from Sacred Heart Medical Center to St. Mary’s School, from the Ridpath Hotel to City Hall, hoping to generate as many pairs as possible.
After listening to his plea at an investment club, Ed Codd bought and donated 60 pairs.
George Cole cleaned out his closet - and the closet at the Valley Center. Many shoes are donated to the center’s clothing bank but few are actually chosen by low-income people.
Cole announced the shoe drive at his church, Good Shepherd Lutheran, and said the response everywhere has been “oh boy!” “It’s like fire and thistles, it just catches on,” Cole said.
“It’s an easy thing to do,” Rothrock said. “Everybody has got an extra pair of shoes.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: TO DONATE People interested in donating new or used shoes or children’s clothing to help Rwandan refugees can drop donations at any Tidyman’s grocery store or Hamer’s clothing store, or call 534-7484.