Blue Cross volunteers help local foundation through day of service

Jen Cowart
Posted 10/8/15

Last Friday, on a rainy, windy day, nearly 40 Blue Cross & Blue Shield volunteers helped Cranston’s Gotta Have Sole Foundation fill orders for hundreds of local children in need of new, unused …

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Blue Cross volunteers help local foundation through day of service

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Last Friday, on a rainy, windy day, nearly 40 Blue Cross & Blue Shield volunteers helped Cranston’s Gotta Have Sole Foundation fill orders for hundreds of local children in need of new, unused shoes and socks.

The day is an annual event for the participants who are given the opportunity to give back each year, putting in a full day of service at one of several charity organizations across the state.

“This year, Gotta Have Sole is one of 13 different locations that our 700 employees could choose from,” said Carolyn Belisle, managing director of community relations for the company. “We remain open for business, but we have 700 employees out in the field today for our fourth annual day of service.”

Included in this year’s volunteer event were a special group of volunteers in the form of three student ambassadors from Sacred Heart Elementary School in East Providence – first-grader Leah Cipolla, fifth-grader Peyton Nardella, and seventh-grader Mary Nicole Hunsberger – who helped to conduct a sock drive at the school as part of the Feinstein Good Deeds program. The drive brought in a whopping 631 pair of socks, and the children were nominated to represent the school by hand-delivering the socks and helping to make the cards and messages which accompany each shoe and sock order for a child. Nardella is the daughter of Heather Nardella, a Blue Cross employee who was at the event as well.

“We hope to complete orders for over 800 children today, and that would put the foundation over the 43,000 mark for orders they’ve filled to date,” said Jude Angell, the project captain. “It’s a big goal, and we hope to get there.”

Lori Lowinger, mother of son Nicholas Lowinger, who started the foundation as bar mitzvah project, was thrilled with the production numbers for the day.

“This is amazing,” she said. “It’s the largest amount completed in one day for any of our events. We put a call out to of our local shelters and transitional housing facilities, and they answered the call, so these shoes and socks will all be going out to those local children.”

She also noted that the majority of the shoes used to fill the day’s orders were purchased using a grant from Blue Cross & Blue Shield as part of the day of service.

“Each charity whose application is selected is given a $5,000 grant for their charity and we used that money to benefit the Rhode Island kids who will be receiving these shoes and socks,” Lowinger said. “Inspyr socks is also a major partner with us and they sent us a tremendous amount of socks for today’s event as well. Each pair of socks has a message of hope written up the back, and that is very much in keeping with our foundation’s mission.”

For more information about Gotta Have Sole and its mission, visit gottahavesole.org.

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