Glen Carbon Elementary students contribute to Shoeman Water Project

Kindergarten through second graders at Glen Carbon Elementary School are definitely learning about humanitarian efforts at an early age.

First-grade teacher Katie Self and her class completed a shoe collection for the fourth consecutive year. The class collected 211 pairs of shoes for the Shoeman Water Project.

George “the Shoeman” Hutchings, is president of Shoeman Water Projects in Ballwin, Mo. He had the idea to turn selling donated shoes into ways of developing clean water in other parts of the world and has made it his everyday focus.

“I think this taught them a lot about the importance of giving,” Self said. “I am recycling coordinator at school and this is about recycling and giving things we no longer need to people who do.”

Self has been working with Madison County in the recycling area as an ongoing project. She is planning to do another collection in the spring and hoping a well will be named after her children in Panama.

She said she is highly motivated to work with the students in her teaching role and also the humanitarian causes.

“I love working with them every day; it’s a pleasure,” she said. “I honestly wanted to be a teacher since I was in elementary school. I went to Lincoln Middle School, then Edwardsville High School and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Teaching itself is a dream come true to me.”

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