Salvation Army gives away 85 pairs of shoes

“We were looking for a place we could do as much good as possible as the school year is starting,” comments Kerri Dzuibak, one of seven board members with the Waseca County Salvation Army. With her on the Salvation Army board are Jay Dulas, Victoria Huen, Larry Johnson, Kris Markeson, John Petersburg and Laura Wenzel. 

 

For the third time, county youth were offered a free pair of shoes. “We ran this same program in 2024 and 2023,” explained Dzuibak. This year, 85 area students accepted the gift of free shoes, slightly down from 105 given away in 2024.

 

A white bus from the Twin Cities organization “Good in the ‘Hood” parked outside the Central School building in Waseca for a few hours the afternoon of Wednesday, Aug. 27. Inside were a few dozen bins of shoes sorted by size ranging from infant to adult.

 

Board members Dzuibak and Wenzel had sent out notices through the Waseca office of the Minnesota Valley Action Council (MVAC) and through area schools notifying families they could come to the event, fill out a registration form, take a turn perusing the bins, then go home with one free pair of shoes for each child. There was no requirement that people taking part have qualifying levels of income; all children were welcome.

 

According to bus driver Corey Myers, “Good in the ‘Hood” is a Plymouth-based organization. The bus is part of its “Shoe Away Hunger” campaign. Many pairs of new shoes are donated by metro area Schuller Shoe stores; well preserved used shoes are also in the bins. Typically, shoes are sold for $3 a pair and income is used to support metro area food shelves.

 

Dzuibak explains the local Salvation Army had an agreement with Good in the ‘Hood to pay a reduced price for shoes given away on Aug. 27.

 

“Families have to meet a lot of demands at the start of the school year,” she commented. “We wanted to help with that.”

 

Another start-of-school assistance program through the Salvation Army is a backpack filled with school supplies. “It’s not just a notebook and pencil anymore,” Dzuibak said, noting that students of different ages and in different schools have varying needs. This year, the members of Waseca’s Christ the King church agreed to acquire 25 backpacks with a range of basic supplies inside. When a backpack is requested, it is customized to the individual student’s recommended list of supplies before being presented.

 

The Salvation Army also posted an online notice that it was giving away haircuts available at Kroeger’s Koncept and Cassie’s Classic Cuts. The first 30 children to respond received a voucher and were able to make their own appointments at the salons.

 

The local Salvation Army also offers emergency assistance within the county all year long.

 

Dzuibak mentions the holiday “kettle” campaign when red containers are placed in area stores and bell ringers take shifts outside of the Waseca Walmart. Especially thanks to a good-natured “competition” during which the county sheriff’s office, Waseca police department and Waseca fire department each took a 2-hour time slot last December, a total of about $6,000 was raised, according to Dzuibak.

 

“We use the donations given in our county to support people in our county,” she said, adding that statewide practice is that donations are region-specific–that is, wherever donations are given, that is the area where they are used. “I just really want to encourage people to make donations locally,” she said.