Local business donates new shoes to charities

BY DANIEL HOWLEY Staff Writer

OCEAN TOWNSHIP – For the last three years, local business owner JoAnne Abraham has been helping Monmouth County residents by donating new shoes to those in need.

Some 250 pairs of shoes were donated to 180, Turning Lives Around, and Family & Children’s Service to be distributed to less fortunate Monmouth County families.

The donation would not be made possible without the generosity of one of the shoe manufacturers that Abrahams carries at her Ocean Township store, Back Relief and Comfort Store, on Route 35.

“We just give the shoes

OCEAN TOWNSHIP

to [the charities] because we think it’s such a fabulous program and we are thrilled to be a part of it,” Abraham said.

“This is the third year we’ve done this, and each time I am amazed,” Abraham said.

The Back Relief and Comfort Store specializes in providing orthopedic products, including shoes, mattresses and chairs. The store carries shoes distributed by New York-based Yaleet Inc. Yaleet is the distributor of the Israeli manufactured Naot orthopedic footwear, and each year the distributor selects one retail store that carries its products to donate 250 Naot shoes to local charities.

“The man who owns Yaleet Inc. decided when he started the company that he would not send extra shoes to a discount house and that he would find a way to give them away,” Abraham said.

“What he does is, once a year, he offers the opportunity to one of his dealers to give 250 shoes to a nonprofit that promises to give them away.

“They are very serious about it,” Abraham explained, adding, “They want to make sure that the shoes go to a registered nonprofit and that the nonprofit will give them away.”

Abraham said

that she divides the

250 pairs of shoes donated

by Yaleet Inc. between the Hazlet-based 180, Turning Lives Around, a private nonprofit organization dedicated to ending domestic violence and sexual assault, and the Long Branch-based Family & Children’s Service, the largest and oldest nonprofit social agency in Monmouth County.

“Every manufacturer has some extra product, but most of it ends up in discount stores,” Abraham said, adding, “But Naot’s doesn’t.”

With over 200 shoes being given out this year, Abraham said she hopes she has the opportunity to participate in the program again next year.

For more information about the shoe give away or the Back Relief and Comfort Store, call JoAnne Abraham at 732-493-2225.