Students Donate Shoes to Bring Attention to Human Trafficking

A group of William Paterson University students brought attention to human trafficking and helped the homeless on Sunday.

The Intervarsity Christian Fellowship put more than 4,100 pairs of shoes on display outside the school’s student center. The group had hoped to collect 27,000 pairs, with each pair representing 1,000 human trafficking victims.

The group is honing in on the Super Bowl, which will be played at MetLife Stadium in 2014. 

“The thing that blew me away is the Super Bowl is the largest single event in the United States where human trafficking occurs,” said Ken Vander Wall, the group’s adviser and the campus pastor. “We need to draw attention to that and keep things like that from happening in the United States.”

The shoes will be donated to Soles4Souls, a nonprofit that donates shoes to the needy.

Students from two other colleges, 15 high schools and several local churches helped collect shoes for the fundraiser.

The shoes were arraigned in groups of 100 on the lawn outside the student center and lined an amphitheater near the student center.

Suzanna Montano collected 318 pairs of shoes. 

“I talked to people and they are very unaware that it happens at all here in the United States,” Montano said. “When you talk to people about slavery in the modern day world, they think it happens in third-world nations and don’t think that it’s happening here.”

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