If you want to understand someone, as the saying goes, walk a mile in their shoes. But if you want to help the community, the environment and a family in a developing country, donate your own shoes.

When Community Center secretary Jen Field read an email about “Shoes With Heart,” she knew the program was perfect for the organization. “It’s totally different. Not the normal request for funds or holding a bake sale.”

The Community Center’s management team agreed and a fundraiser started at the nonprofit on Nov. 5. Since then, shoes have literally come in by the barrel full.

Florida-based Funds2orgs runs this unique way to raise funds. The program originated to help people all over the world after natural disasters and now helps people and organizations raise money. It raises funds by collecting gently worn and new shoes. A barrel for shoes sits just outside the Community Center door. The barrel holds 25 pairs of shoes. The first barrel filled up quickly and has been followed by one each day.

All kinds of shoes are accepted: sandals, boots, sneakers, slippers, men’s, women’s and children’s shoes, as long as they are gently worn or new. The shoes can have no holes and the soles must be intact. As “Shoes With Heart” explains: in wearable condition. For sneakers and other shoes that tie, the laces must be intact. The Community Center is paid 40 cents for every pound.

After processing, the shoes make their way to developing nations. There, they go to micro-entrepreneurs (typically family businesses) who sell the shoes to create an income for their families. So the program not only benefits the Center, it helps families survive in 25 countries like Haiti, Uganda and India.

There is another local benefit from the program. According to Funds2orgs, 630 million pairs of shoes are thrown away every year. The shoes go into local landfills where “(they) can take a lifetime to decompose.” Instead, the fundraiser helps get the shoes to people who can use them.

Field, who celebrates one year at the Center in January, said the response from the community is “unbelievable and heartwarming. It’s an easy way for people to help us and others just by going through their closets.”

Thanks to her efforts, shoes from the Boothbay peninsula will soon be worn in the far corners of the world.

Shoes can be donated at any time in the barrel outside the Community Center door in the Meadow Mall. For more information, call 633-9876.