High school student collecting shoes for children

Mater Dei High School student Andrea Stange will collect good-quality used shoes and sports cleats of all sizes from 9 a.m. to noon Sunday in front of the Starbucks at Main Street and Yorktown Avenue to take to Mexico.

She held a shoe drive at her high school, where she received 12 pairs, and has now extended the reach to her community.

Andrea, an avid soccer player, went to Tijuana last year through the nonprofit organization Corazon, which assists poor communities in Mexico.

She spent the day with children playing soccer, and noticed the majority of the hungry children had no shoes.

“This broke my heart,” she said. “I thought about how easy it would be to share the old shoes I had sitting in the back of my closet, and I know many other people around Orange County have old shoes in the back of their closets. I knew I had to help these kids.”

— Candice Baker