For most children, a birthday party means one thing….lots of PRESENTS! This is hardly the case for 9 year old Bianca Booher, from Bloomington, Indiana. For her birthday on June 14th, Bianca collected shoes from her friends on behalf of the 300 million children around the world without footwear. Inspired by the TV show “Oprah’s Big Give”, Bianca decided she wanted to give her birthday gifts away to charity. Right before her birthday last year, she saw footage of a home ravaged by floods. She saw a child’s bookshelf full of wet books and this motivated her to collect over 651 books for her birthday to give away to children. After last year’s birthday, she immediately began to get excited about what to collect for future birthdays.
Bianca had a “Barefoot Tween Prom” birthday party, complete with a shoe shaped cake, beautiful dresses, dancing and lots of SHOES. “I had a lot of shoes I couldn’t wear anymore; probably about 7 pairs in my closet, and I asked my friends to bring the shoes that they couldn’t wear to the party. There are a lot of people who don’t have any shoes, and collecting them made me feel really, really good”, said the captivating nine year old.
So far, Bianca has collected over 500 pairs of shoes. Bianca is still collecting shoes at her gymnastics center, where she has been taking gymnastics “since she was born”. She is also preparing for her role as Chip the Teacup in the stage production of Beauty and the Beast. Bianca is thinking about becoming a gymnastics coach or an actress. Presently, she is an inspiring nine year old, changing the world one pair at a time.
