MACON – Two years ago Donnie and Cindy Bonuchi were in their Sunday school class at First Baptist Church, Macon and a question was posed: “What could we do to give back to our community?” People around the table had different answers. The Bonuchis took the question to heart.
“Most of the time these kind of application questions get talked about and no one does anything about it,” Donnie Bonuchi said. “That’s as far as it gets. But Cindy and I started praying about the question.”
They decided the Lord was leading them to provide for needy kids in their town. Donnie asked Cindy what they should do specifically. They prayed some more.
Many times the Bonuchis had experienced groups trying to provide for needy people for a certain season—back to school supplies, food at Thanksgiving, toys at Christmas. But they wanted to impact people year-round. Shoes were mentioned as a need kids have all the time.
Both Donnie and Cindy are disabled, and they visit doctor’s offices often. One day at a medical office waiting room in Columbia, a family walked in with four kids. Bonuchi said they all had mismatched shoes and some of them were taped together with duct tape.
Boom! That was their answer from God: provide needy kids with shoes.
Two Macon FBC Sunday school classes joined together to raise money to buy tennis shoes for kids at their local Head Start center.
“I walked into the office of Dana Kirks, at the Macon Head Start, and said we wanted to buy all 65 of their kids a pair of shoes,” Bonuchi said.
Kirks asked, “Is this a one-time deal or all the time?”
That was the catalyst the Bonuchis needed to go back to their church and begin raising more funds to buy more shoes.
Starting with the first 65 pairs for kids in Macon, they then expanded their shoe ministry into the whole county and then to nearby Kirksville. By year’s end they had provided 520 pairs of shoes to kids in two counties. The ministry began to take off like a rocket.
Working through the Head Start agencies, they would measure the kid’s feet, get signed permissions from parents and then deliver a new pair of shoes for the kids at their homes. They find out if there are other kids in the home and bring them shoes also.
When they see that the shoes fit, they ask if there are other needs in the home, which they try to meet by linking them with other community resources. Finally, they ask if they can pray for the people. They ask if they can stay in contact, and they invite the families to their churches.
Today the Bonuchis lead their non-profit organization “Shoes from the Heart” (www.shoesfromtheheart.org) to provide shoes for over 1,100 kids per year in 25 counties in the northern half of Missouri.
Donnie Bonuchi said a lady at a recent shoe fitting event started crying, saying, “This is a good organization. We have been praying since we lost everything in a fire two weeks ago. We heard of this group and now we have brand new shoes for all of the kids. It is an answer to our prayers.”
Shoes from the Heart volunteers—about 100 of them—stay in touch with the families who receive shoes. Many times these families begin attending the local partner churches in their communities. They understand it is “about the shoes for the kids” but it is also “not all about the shoes.” It’s about both the physical and spiritual needs of the families they touch.