Ever since I started getting involved in the community and in student organizations if we were ever asked to share a quote I would always quote Marilyn Monroe. There were a group of words that struck my soul and instantly made me want to do amazing things. Marilyn said, “Give a girl the right pair of shoes and she will conquer the world.” That was me, every time I put on the right pair of shoes; I knew I was made to be something 
bigger than what I was the moment before. I would take examples from Cinderella, how one shoe completely changed her life. I loved shoes and I could see that shoes had some sort of power.
Never would I have thought that shoes would have had such a big impact on my life, until I came across something that was much bigger then heels or a Disney Princess. I found my purpose for my obsession of shoes when I found the Soles4Souls organization. Soles4Souls is a non-profit organization that helps with the devastation of poverty here in the United States and around the world. Since 2004, the Soles4Souls organization has distributed over 19 million pairs of shoes to over 127 countries. They encourage people to recycle their shoes so that they may use them again and partner up with companies like Sketchers to provide children with new pairs of shoes.
So, this was it, this was how I was going to conquer the world. I interpreted the quote wrong for myself. It wasn’t the right pair of shoes for me; it was the pair of shoes I was going to give away. That’s when my trip to Jamaica started. I wanted to travel and see what impact shoes were really having on people lives.
I traveled to Miami by myself but met my team to fly to Jamaica. I didn’t know any of them and I was the youngest on the team. The first thing we did was load shoes from a home there in Jamaica; Soles4Souls pre-ships them to every country. In one week we traveled to nine different elementary schools and distributed shoes. Not only distributed shoes but washed feet, healed wounds, changed a young life, and made love an actual verb.
My heart bombed with joy with every child I came in contact with. It was instant love. It didn’t matter what you were there for or if they knew you or not, they automatically wanted to be your friend. You could literally feel their humbleness and love. Seeing their feet was the hardest part. Some had tattered shoes with holes in them or no shoes at all. With each toe, foot, and pair of shoes my world was changing and my life was starting to be so much bigger than before. Now my heart had to have room for thousands of children in another country. Now my soul hungers for more. My next shoe stop is in Haiti in December 2013, I can’t wait to meet the little faces that are going to fill my heart and life next.
Shoes have changed my life further then what I, Marilyn, and even Cinderella would have imagined. Plus, the smiles and love I get from a child is way better than finding my prince charming or conquering the world focused on my own shoes.
XOXO – Jessica Farkas