GREENVILLE – Greenville Church of the Brethren is helping to provide safe water to people around the world by hosting a shoe drive now through Aug. 31.

Shoes of any size and condition can be dropped off at Greenville Church of the Brethren, located at 421 Central Ave., between 9 a.m. and noon Tuesday through Friday. The shoes will be donated to WaterStep, an organization that uses training and technology to create long-lasting water solutions for developing countries.

“For more information or if you have shoes to donate and would like for them to be picked up, please contact the church (937) 548-3583),” sad organizers.

Once the shoes are collected and donated to WaterStep, they are sold to an exporter. The funds raised from the sale of the shoes go to WaterStep’s work of providing safe water solutions to people in third world communities and disaster hit areas. The shoes are then repurposed and re-sold in marketplaces providing affordable footwear to those in need. WaterStep collects on average 30,000 pounds of shoes each month, so that’s 30,000 pounds of waste that is kept from going into landfills.

WaterStep, headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, is a U.S.-based 501(c) (3) organization that works to fight the global water crisis by addressing the root causes of waterborne illness.

More than 780 million people in the world lack access to safe drinking water; a child dies every 30 seconds from waterborne illness. WaterStep works to develop and implement sustainable solutions to the global water crisis by equipping people around the world with the tools, technology and training to provide safe water in their own communities. Since 2001, WaterStep has improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in almost two dozen countries including, Haiti, Kenya, India, Ethiopia, the Dominican Republic, The Philippines, Pakistan, and Costa Rica.

To learn more, call (502) 568-6342 or visit www.waterstep.org.