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Teen celebrating bat mitzvah collects 30,000 shoes to donate to Los Angeles homeless
Los Angeles Mar 08, 2021
Pile of shoes Photo credit Getty Images
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Turning 13 in the Jewish community is a time for celebration, and a momentous occasion marking a young person’s journey into adulthood.
A bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah is held for the young person, which includes a part of the ceremony called a “Tikkun Olam,” which is an “act of repairing the world” central to the bat mitzvah ceremony.
Los Angeles girl Lindsay Sobel, who would soon be turning 13, decided for her Tikkun Olam to launch Shoes for Soles , an organization dedicated to collecting and distributing shoes for Southern Californians in need.
Sobel said in an interview with A Mighty Girl, “I noticed a lot of them were in really awful living conditions, no way any person should have to live. On top of that, I noticed a lot of them did not even have shoes on. At 12 years old, I was like, ‘Wow, people don’t have shoes?’ It kind of put things into perspective for me.'”
Since starting Shoes for Soles, Sobel has collected and donated more than 30,000 pairs of shoes for people in need in southern California. Sobel believes that “one pair of shoes can […]