Ellington

UW senior Barclay Klingel stepped off the bus and into the muddy soil of the Dominican Republic terrain. As he looked down at his feet, to his annoyance, he noticed his brand new, white Chuck Taylors were now covered in mud.

It was only day one of Klingel’s mission trip two years ago with the University Presbyterian Church, and he was already in a foul mood thinking about his soiled new sneakers. As he walked into the classroom of the school where he would be working that day, a 10-year-old Dominican boy named Luis approached him.

“He looked me in the eyes, saw my frustration over this material possession of mine, and came over and grabbed my hand, took me to the side of the building away from everyone else, got down on his hands and knees in the midst of broken glass, rusty nails, sewage, whatever you can imagine, got a stick and a piece of trash and began to clean my shoes,” Klingel said.

All of Klingel’s previous annoyances melted away as Luis began to dig the mud off of his Chuck Taylors. Multiple children soon began gathering around him, and all of a sudden, Klingel found himself surrounded by children kneeling on the ground, cleaning his shoes.

“Just the contrast of being down there that week and seeing these kids getting cuts and infections every day just by running through the stuff on the ground, the garbage everywhere, and then for him to clean my shoes,” Klingel said. “The importance of that was incredible and made me question, ‘Who’s really down here doing the service?’ It was a servant mentality that I had never really experienced before, humility at its greatest.”

After returning from his mission trip, Klingel felt a call to continue helping the community. Alongside senior Megan Stewart, who was also a missionary on the trip, fewer than two years after their experience, the two founded a nonprofit organization called Luis Sneaks. The organization is named after the Dominican boy who tried cleaning Klingel’s shoes.

Partnered with Children of the Nations, a nonprofit group that assists children in Third World countries, and Native Shoes, a company offering what they describe as innovative, durable footwear, Luis Sneaks is aiming to provide 1,250 pairs of shoes to the children of the Dominican Republic, and distribute them in the spring.

While Native Shoes donated all of the shoes, Luis Sneaks is working to fund the cost of shipping, which, Stewart noted, is $3,000 to $4,000 alone. To raise the money, Luis Sneaks has begun selling $15 T-shirts around campus.

The two are also planning to begin tabling in Red Square and are holding a Pub Crawl on March 31.

In their upcoming campaign, called “Shirts On, Shoes Off,” the organization will encourage people who purchased Luis Sneaks T-shirts to post photos of themselves onto the Luis Sneaks Facebook page while on adventures – like hiking or rock climbing – with their shirt on and shoes off.

“We really just want to make sure that every kid that comes to school will be able to get a pair of shoes,” Stewart said.

Eventually, Stewart hopes for the shoe drive to become a regular benefit for the community.

“We’re hoping that it will become sustainable,” she said. “Not just us dropping a whole bunch of shoes and not being able to do it again. But [our] long-term goals are to be able to have this every year or every couple years based on the kids’ needs.”

Klingel referred to the shoes donated by Native Shoes as “Crocs on steroids.” As water-resistant, lightweight, antimicrobial and odor-resistant, the shoes are designed for tropical climates like the Dominican Republic.

“Sometimes it’s kind of hard for us to relate to needing shoes; I could go a day without shoes for sure, because I don’t have much to walk through,” Klingel said. “But when it comes down to kids getting cuts and infections down there and not receiving the right treatment … that can really mess up their feet for months at a time.”

Klingel said that witnessing the children’s humility on his mission trip last March left him with an incessant drive to continue helping them.

“If I were to look at [their situation] from an outsider perspective, I would think there would be a lot of despair,” he said. “But the hope that people have is incredible. It’s really cool for a child to humble himself to me and clean my shoes. It still kind of has me confused sometimes as to why a 10-year-old boy would do that for me.”

Stewart aims to continue working with the Dominican children in the future, and hopes someday to see Luis Sneaks expand to other countries.

“The kids in the D.R. have got me wrapped around their finger, so I want to go back and help,” she said. “And who knows, maybe one day we’ll be able to do all the different sites. But one thing at a time.”

Reach reporter Kirsten Johnson at lifestyles@dailyuw.com.