New shoes for Vianca

Posted: June 14, 2011   By: Holly Drake

PAMPA HERMOSA, Peru – It’s summertime and children everywhere are kicking off their shoes to run through the grass under the warm sun.

But for nine-year-old Vianca, going barefoot wasn’t a choice.

The little girl owned only one pair of shoes—and to ensure they would last a long time, she wore them only for school. The rest of the time, Vianca simply went barefoot.

But one day she had to walk past a construction site on her way to the store; she didn’t see the nail before she stepped on it, but felt the pain as soon as she did.

“There was a lot of blood and a hole in my foot,” she said.

A friend helped her return home where her parents bandaged the wound. For three days Vianca stayed at home in bed, in too much pain to even go to school.

“I felt sad for Vianca,” her father Lucio said, “but there was nothing I could do.”

He desperately wanted to buy her another pair of shoes, but he is a harvester at a coffee plantation, making barely enough money to feed his family.

Vianca’s wound eventually healed but the danger remained. And almost more hazardous than items like nails and glass shards, are the parasites that children like Vianca can get from running barefoot through a community with poor sanitation.

But a solution was on its way. Operation Blessing and TOMS Shoes came to Vianca’s community, bringing a special gift for each child—a brand new pair of shoes.

The children were all measured and properly fitted into new shoes that will help protect their feet and guard against parasites and other potential dangers.

“Thanks, Operation Blessing, for my new shoes!” Vianca said with a big smile.

In addition to the shoes, Operation Blessing also distributed anti-parasite medicine to help rid the children of the harmful intestinal parasites.