Magazine collects 10,000 shoes to turn into playgrounds

Tag : Children Shoes

WASHINGTON -- A children's magazine strolled into the GuinnessWorld Record books this week by assembling a record-setting chainof shoes that, ultimately, will be used for good.
National Geographic Kids magazine collected 10,512 shoes over asix-month period by soliciting donations from their readers. Theshoes will now be re-donated to Nike's Reuse-a-Shoe program, wheretheir rubber soles will be turned into playgrounds and sportssurfaces such as track fields.
"What you see behind me is not 10,000 stinky sneakers . . .but twobrand-new basketball courts," said Melina Bellows, the magazine'seditor in chief.
When tied heel to toe, the sneakers measure about 8,700 feet ormore than 1.6 miles in length.
The magazine's editors made the call for donations in an effort toeducate their young readers on the importance of recycling.Individual readers, and school and community groups organized shoedrives across the country for the effort.
The biggest individual contributor was Peter Wajda, 8, of MountLaurel, N.J., who collected 509 shoes for the project. He's notquite sure why the odd number, joking that he figures someoneeither lost a shoe or he got a "donation from a one-legged person."
Peter, who said he was inspired to be more environmentallyconscious by Earth Day and recycling activities at his school, readthe call for shoe donations in National Geographic Kids and quicklygot his pediatrician, family and school to help him collect.
"At the beginning of the school year, the head of my school saidlots of people can make a little difference, but one person canmake a big difference, and I said, 'Why can't I be the bigdifference person'," Peter said.
Peter, who will enter third grade next year at Moorestown FriendsSchool in Mount Laurel, delivered the shoes in January to theNational Geographic Society's office in Washington.
He was honored in Washington Wednesday at a press conferenceannouncing the record.
In addition to readers' contributions, members of the U.S. Women'sNational Soccer Team donated their old sneakers.
So did actress Cameron Diaz, who contributed two of her formerrunning shoes.
Diaz served as guest editor for the magazine's first "Green Issue"in October 2007, which unveiled the campaign.
This is the third Guinness Record the magazine has set. In November2004, it created the world's longest line of footprints -- 10,932prints, measuring nearly two miles. In December 2006,the magazinecollected 2,304 plush toys, a record that has since been beaten.
That was "a sign that we are inspiring others, which is a goodthing," Bellows said.
Yesterday's achievement dwarfs the previous world record of 840shoes measuring 1,483 feet set in 2007 by Goffstown High School inGoffstown, N.H.
Bellows said it took magazine staffers more than six hours to tieall the donated shoes into a chain for counting.
"It's quite an achievement; it's not as easy as it looks," saidStuart Claxton, U.S. business development manager for Guinness. Ittook him more than three hours to count the shoes.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service,http://www.scrippsnews.com)