People Helping People

Diane Quinn, of Boalsburg, helps Jacob, 6, of State College, find a pair of shoes that he likes at St. Paul's Methodist Church's weekly shoe bank, which distributes over 500 pairs of shoes per year to children in the community.

Last Saturday morning I got to hang out with a bunch of church ladies, which I haven't done in a few years.  The assignment was to shoot people helping people: a church in town runs a shoe bank every weekend, so I hung around there and photographed the morning.

Diane Quinn, of Boalsburg, checks the fit of a new pair of sneakers for Jacob, 6, of State College, Pa.  Quinn is a volunteer for the St. Paul's Methodist Church's weekly shoe bank, where children from the community are free to pick a pair of new shoes every six months.

This was surprisingly fun to shoot.  I wasn't sure how the people would react to me, but they were all very friendly and talkative.  Jacob's mother, a Russian immigrant, wasn't sure what to make of me and wouldn't provide her last name, but everyone else was very cooperative.  

Samuel Martinez, 11, of Bellefonte, struggles to fit into a pair of Air Jordans at St. Paul's Methodist Church's shoe bank, as volunteer Lynn Phillips of Bellefonte looks on. In addition to his shoes, Martinez took home Shiloh as his free book.

I had completely forgotten what an ordeal shoe-buying was as a child until I shot this: having a battery of helpers pinching your toes, deciding which colors would show dirt the least, battling with your mother over cool vs. sensible shoes, and how tremendously difficult it used to be to pull off boots.

I still have trouble with boots.