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"IUPUI
coach, players will take shoes
to Peru"
INDIANAPOLIS (AP)—IUPUI
basketball coach Ron Hunter,
who went barefoot for a game
last season, won’t be
able to deliver shoes to the
poor in Nigeria this month because
the U.S. State Department said
it wouldn’t be safe to
go.
Instead, Hunter said his group
will travel to Lima, Peru, on
Thursday to deliver about 15,000
pairs of shoes.
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Originally, a group of about 40
people from IUPUI and Samaritan’s
Feet, a charitable organization based
in Charlotte, N.C., planned to deliver
shoes and visit orphanages, schools
and hospitals in Nigeria. Hunter and
some of his players also planned to
hold basketball clinics.
The shoes made it across the Atlantic
Ocean, but the group won’t.
Samaritan’s Feet spokesman Todd
Melloh said Tuesday that the State
Department contacted the charity to
say the trip might be a bad idea.
The State Department Web site has
a travel warning against going to
the West African nation, saying unusually
high levels of violence and crimes
are committed there by police, militias
and ordinary citizens.
“Nigeria has an unsettled situation,”
Melloh said. “They (the State
Department) intercepted communication
that it was not going to be positive
for our trip. It was almost like they
were waiting for us.”
Hunter said the charity already had
planned to send shoes to Peru later
in the year. He said the central coast
of the South American nation still
is recovering from a massive earthquake
last Aug. 15. Though his heart was
set on going to Africa, he is looking
forward to the trip to Lima.
“I was a little disappointed,
but I’ve got to worry about
the well-being and the safety of the
people going with us,” Hunter
said. “Now, we get to go help
another part of the world.”
Samaritan’s Feet convinced Hunter
to go barefoot for a Jan. 24 game
against Oakland, and Hunter set a
pregame goal of collecting 40,000
pairs of shoes in honor of the 40th
anniversary of the death of Martin
Luther King Jr.
By tipoff, he’d already raised
110,000 pairs, counting those that
had been pledged on the Samaritan’s
Feet Web site. The charity said Hunter
has raised more than 150,000 pairs
of shoes.
Many of the shoes already have been
delivered across the world. Some have
gone to Liberia and the Darfur region
of Sudan. Others have been delivered
to kids in Washington, D.C., and Virginia.
Samaritan’s Feet plans to send
shoes to Uganda and Mozambique in
Africa, and Guyana in South America
later this year.
The mission of the Christian-based
charity is to send 10 million shoes
in 10 years to children living in
poverty. This year’s goal is
1 million pairs.
The group will return to the United
States on Aug. 4.
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