Two Children, a Pair of Shoes, Great Generosity

Years ago, thanks to the support of a religious congregation, we donated sneakers for the first time to the children in our community. Fearing that they would sell or exchange them for something else during the weekend at home, we recommended that they not get rid of them and return on Monday with the shoes on their feet for a check. Indeed, on Monday we discovered that one child no longer had his shoes. Days later, however, the shoes mysteriously reappeared, only to disappear again. It took us several days to figure out what had happened.

The day he received the shoes, the child took them home. A neighbor of his, very poor and who had never owned a pair of shoes in his life, saw them and was enchanted. In a gesture of great generosity, the first child donated his shoes to him, thus being left without.

However, on Monday, after our announcement of a check for those who had lost their shoes, he went back to talk to his friend, telling him that they had told him he could not return to the mission without the shoes. His friend, to avoid being discovered, devised a plan: the first child would wear the shoes in the morning to go to school at the mission, where they were checked, and then he would pass them to him in the refectory around noon. In this way, the second child would wear them for the afternoon at school, without anyone noticing.

In this way, the poorest child was finally able to have his first pair of shoes, thanks to the generosity of his friend and the ingenuity of both. If I had been 7-8 years old and had been given my first pair of shoes, would I have donated them? The story of these two children from the mission teaches us that true wealth does not lie in material possessions, but in sharing and mutual support, values that can make a difference in the lives of those in need.