BLAINE, Minn. – (June 15, 2017) – Being in sports and activities in high school can become quite pricey, especially when there’s costumes involved. The Blaine dance team is reaching towards new goals this summer with a fundraiser aimed at helping them while helping others. How? Simply, by collecting shoes.
“Originally my mom came up with the idea because we want to have better costumes for winter, we want to have more money in general to support our team,” explained captain Lauren Trempe.
The team will be collecting shoes from the community which will then be sent to entrepreneurs in developing countries where they will be able to sell the shoes for a profit. Lauren’s mom, Jenny Trempe wanted to something beyond the usual fundraiser.
“I was looking fundraisers that were more community outreach fundraisers not necessarily selling fundraisers to get the girls more out in the community, so I actually found it online looking for fundraising ideas and I came across this company,” Trempe said.
Funds2Orgs is the non-profit the dance team will be using. How it works is the dance team collects the shoes, they give them to Funds2orgs and the company sends the team a check depending on how many shoes they collect.
“We have a two month collecting period to collect these shoes, so we have until August 1 and after that time, they actually come out and they’ll pick up the shoes which should be roughly around 8,000 lbs of shoes if we reach meet goal and then they bring them to their company in Florida and they weigh them, and then we get paid based on the weight of the shoes,” said Jenny Trempe. “Then these shoes then are allocated throughout the world to these developing countries where then these people within these developing country communities can sell the shoes can provide for their families and their communities.”
The dance team is jumping quite high to reach its goal.
“We want to have at least like 300 bags, the goal is like 100 for each girl to collect, so four bags,” said Lauren Trempe.
They’re making sure that there’s access for the greater community to get involved as well.
“So we have a site on Facebook, we are having a drop off location at the Blaine Fire Station off of Ulysses in Blaine that people can drop off Mon. through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.,” Jenny said.
As far as rules and regulations are concerned, there aren’t too many restrictions when it comes to the types of shoes one can donate.
“They can be anything they can be kids, adults, they can be boots, high heels, any shoe, not like roller blades or roller skates or ice skates or anything like that but they can be new, used worn, gently used, just nothing with holes, rips, tears and the soles need to be intact.”
Jenny hopes the goals they reach for this fundraiser go far beyond just the dance team.
“I just want them to get out in their community and be a part of their community and understand that there’s people in need and they’re really lucky to be able to be on this team and to be able to be part of the Blaine dance team, so just to kind of pay it forward and to see that there’s others in need and if they work together they can really accomplish a big goal to get these shoes to these people who need them.”
