Shoes

Andrew Elliott
Sep 2, 2018 · 2 min read

In our last week in Ghana, we had a lot of loose ends we had to tie up: finishing up the projects we started, doing our last trip with Bright Generation and getting ready to say goodbye to everyone. I was most looking forward to the Tom’s shoes giveaway at a nearby lake community’s school. It was about an hours drive outside the city to the community with the boxes of shoes in the back of our cab. We got to the school and we were immediately swarmed by the kids trying to shake our hands and say hi to us. Really they just wanted to play. The teachers got the kids to go to their respective classes and we came in to each one with the boxes of shoes and put them on the kids one by one. It was definitely an experience I will never forget. The work that Tom’s and bright generation do to get the shoes to the kids is very admirable and I’m really honored that I was able to play the very small part I did in the distribution. Looking back on the whole trip I feel like I’ve learned a lot by being around such innovative problem solvers like Bernice and Louis but I think it’s the lessons in humility like the Tom’s shoes delivery that will have the most fundamental impact on me. Saying bye to Louis is probably the hardest goodbye because he’s gone out of his way the whole time we were here to make sure we were safe, comfortable and not being ripped off at every turn.

Here’s a picture of us with Louis as we headed out on our bus from Kumasi to Accra.

Andrew Elliott

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