Shoe shipment short $11,000

The fruits of Larissa Figari’s philanthropic endeavor sit deep inside her parents’ garage in Wading River, N.Y.

The 25-year-old dental student at Stony Brook University has filled half of the two-car garage with 4,000 pairs of shoes, amassed with the help of local elementary school students to give to children in Madagascar, the island nation where she worked as a dental volunteer last summer.

“I didn’t realize we would collect so many” shoes, she said of the sneakers and sandals that will continue to crowd the garage unless she can come up with $11,000 she needs to cover the cost of shipping them overseas.

Figari was part of a team of faculty and students that makes annual treks to Madagascar to provide dental care. The relationship between Stony Brook University and Madagascar goes back to 1993, when university scientists first went to the remote northwestern part of Madagascar to collect dinosaur fossils.

Last summer, Figari said many of the children she saw each day were barefoot. When Figari returned to Long Island, she and other students and faculty spread the word that they were taking up a collection of sneakers and sandals – which would stand up better than leather under the weather conditions in Madagascar.

The island gets about 60 inches of rain a year, said David Krause, who founded the Madagascar Ankizy Fund, now administered by the Stony Brook Foundation.

The fund – Ankizy is the Malagasy word for “children” – has built two schools in Madagascar and provides endowments to help keep those schools open and also funds summer health projects.

Figari said donations to help pay shipping costs can be sent to The Madagascar Ankizy Fund, Stony Brook University, Department of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook, N.Y. 11794-8081.