Local Man Gives Hope To Homeless By Way Of Shoes
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- A Miami man gave hope to the homeless by way of shoes.
"Shoes for Streets" is Gabriel Varona's non-profit organization that provides footwear to the needy.
More than 3,700 men, women, and children are considered homeless in Miami-Dade County. They sleep on street corners or in shelters. They are different genders, races, and ages. But one man is bringing them all together, one pair of shoes at a time.
Every week, Gabriel Varona fills his car with containers of shoes in all different sizes and personally passes out all the donated shoes to those in need.
The inception of his organization "Shoes for Streets" began in September.
Gabriel caught a homeless man inside of a dumpster searching for shoes.
"When he jumped out of the dumpster, I saw that he actually had cardboard as shoes stapled together," said Varona. "I was like, 'Man what size shoe are you? 11. I'm a size 11."
So Gabriel took the brand new pair of shoes off of his feet and gave them to the homeless man.
"That was Sunday morning at 8 a.m. That same Sunday afternoon, I went to church and my pastor was saying about ya know everybody needs to use their resources to help one another and literally while I was sitting there I thought 'that's for me.'"
So Gabriel used his social media as a resource to get the word out and get people to donate shoes. That was five months ago. Since then Shoes for Streets has received hundreds of donations filling more than a dozen drop off locations.
"I collect right now about 800 pairs of shoes a week," said Varona.
Gabriel has 13 drop off locations including MCycle in South Miami.