Step By Step :: One Is Greater Than None

A friend of a friend's boyfriend spent some time in Africa last year, and is collecting running shoes for the community he worked in. On Sunday, I promised to give my shoes to this cause, before I depart for my next adventure. And then I stumbled on this! :)


photo: Avery

“Step by Step” is an organization founded in 2006 by then 13 year old Avery Hale from Kentfield, California, with the purpose of providing new and gently used shoes to kids in impoverished villages around the globe.

Avery, now 16, continues to collect personal donations and has partnered with the North Face and Keen Footwear to donate thousands of shoes to children in Peru, South Africa, Cambodia, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Ecuador and South Africa. Her work is currently featured in the Keen Footwear "Hybrid Life" campaign.

If you would like to donate shoes then please send them to:

"Step by Step"
c/o Backroads
801 Cedar St.
Berkeley, CA 94710

Avery will be speaking at this sold-out "Art of Activism" event on February 4, 2010 at the Sundance Kabuki Theaters in San Francisco, sponsored by the (Robert) Redford Center.



While reading about Avery in Teen Vogue, I found out about these awesome young women. YAY LONG ISLAND :)



One is Greater than None (1>0) is a non-profit charity, started on Long Island, NY by eight friends, that raises money to free enslaved Ghanian children from a life of forced labor.

In April 2008, after seeing an episode of Oprah about child labor in Ghana, the girls, then 14, were shocked to see children being sold for as little as $20 into a life of servitude and decided that they wanted to help. Because each rescue mission costs roughly $4,300 per child, the girls were initially worried that it might take years before reaching their goal. In the end, they decided saving just one child was better than doing nothing at all. Thus, One is Greater Than None was born.

The girls started raising money by selling handmade jewelry and launching a clothing line. They have also staged several successful benefit events, including a recent concert at New York's famous Hammerstein Ballroom featuring performances from Push Play and Saving Jane.


photo: from Teen Vogue

Since its founding, 1>0 has sponsored the rescue of 24 Ghanian children – and counting. The girls have also taken on a new domestic cause by committing to a grassroots organization, Remote Area Medical (RAM), which supplies free medical care to impoverished rural areas across America.