Chain of Stores Collects Shoes for Needy

Published in Sun Journal on 12/17/2009

By Daniel Hartill, Staff Writer

AUBURN — Shoe seller Jim Wellehan knew his work would continue as the weather turned cold. For too many people, home is where they stand.

"It's one of those basic survival things, like food and shelter," said the 71-year-old president of Lamey Wellehan. "Shoes are a real issue."

This fall, Wellehan directed people in each of his seven stores — in Auburn, Augusta, Bangor, Brunswick, South Portland, Scarborough and Falmouth — to collect gently used shoes that could be donated to the homeless. His goal was to gather 350 pairs in each store by Oct. 24.

He met it. Then, collections continued.

"We're going to keep going for the length of the season," Wellehan said Wednesday. He is giving away some shoes from his stores. He has asked for donations from his suppliers. And his stores are continuing to accept shoes from walk-in donors.

It's too important to stop, he said.

Wellehan served on a task force this year that examined homelessness in Lewiston-Auburn. It included leaders from local schools, city governments, the United Way and several local agencies.

"Homelessness is not a very visible thing," he said. It hits people with mental illnesses and drug addictions, he said. It also hits populations that include veterans, abused women and high school students.

And it's tempered by half-measures, with people sleeping on friends' couches or getting by with help from family.

"About 37,000 people in Maine are on the edge of homelessness," Wellehan said. His group, the Lewiston-Auburn Alliance for Services to the Homeless, authored a report that aimed to eliminate the problem locally within a decade. The report called for job training and an increase in affordable housing.

"It sounds like Dickens' time," Wellehan said. "It's not the way it was when I was growing up."

He asked what he could do.

By this fall, each of his stores began collecting "gently used" shoes, the kind that someone might give a family member because they were rarely worn.

Rather than creating a donation bin, stores began boxing the shoes, marking down the size of each and stacking them with care. Wellehan began working with the Good Shepherd Food-Bank to get them to folks in need.

Some have been given to Portland's Preble Street shelter. Other charities will get them this season, Wellehan said.

There are plenty of needy people to take whatever donations he can assemble, he said. "We welcome them all as they come."