Volunteers matching 100,000 unsorted shoes

NORFOLK, Va., Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Volunteers with a charitable project in Norfolk, Va., say they are tirelessly working to match up 100,000 unsorted shoes donated by a national manufacturer.

Volunteer John Wright said he and his wife, Kimberly, are coordinating a Hope Charitable Services project focused on sorting out 50,000 pairs of shoes from a mismatched donation from the Timberland company, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot said Wednesday.

The couple began working on the shoe project in June and to date a total of 7,000 shoes have been matched together. That leaves volunteers with only 93,000 more to go.

"I foresee another year of this," Wright said. "It's a labor-intensive process."

Kimberly Wright said there has been at least one bit of luck in regards to the mismatched shoes, the sizes of the footwear.

"All of the women's shoes are size 7 and the men's have all been size 9, so that's helped," she told the Virginian-Pilot.

The newspaper said the matched-up shoe pairs have already been sent to Haiti as part of the charitable project.