An Idea is born (1982)

Often a child grows out of shoes when they are still virtually new. What’s the mother to do with them? Throw them out? There are many children of poor families who would do anything to acquire a pair of their own shoes without holes. Our grandmother, Baila Beinstock o”h, was pained by this lack and saw an opportunity to accomplish - her advanced age notwithstanding. She let it be known that she was collecting any used footwear that was still in excellent condition, and together with her granddaughter, Mrs. Shani Trenk, began doing so. They’d clean and shine the shoes and return them as closely as possible to their original state. They’d then pack them in egg boxes and bring them to the post office. They reached out to Yad Eliezer and found them eager to accept any such footwear donations. As word spread of the new project, footwear donations increased, and Mrs. Beinstock found her senior years rapidly filled with processing and packing shoes. A very familiar scene would be the glow on her face as she’d lovingly polish a shoe, in the hopes of changing someone’s life. Word from Eretz Yisroel was that the footwear was eagerly lapped up by families of struggling B’nai Torah, and making a positive impact on their lives.

Expansion (1987)

Why confine the venture to neighbors and friends? Were the public to know about it, might the donations not increase dramatically? A novel idea was born; let’s use yeshivos as collection vehicles, and thereby reach out to all of the student body. When a trial was launched in the Mir Yeshiva Ketana, there was much doubt that it would work. However, on the collection day, we were overwhelmed with the response; parents were apparently excited to participate. Our mother, Mrs. Chava Weisberger, was elated by the response and took it as a clear direction from Above. She then reached out to another yeshiva to expand the program, and another, and another… she was successful in arranging an annual shoe-collection day in over a hundred yeshivos and schools! Our father, Reb Zevulun z”l, would bring the flyers to the schools, and frequently also picked the shoes up. Grandchildren from Lakewood would sometimes rent trucks and personally pick up shoes from large yeshivos.

Processing (1989)

Where would the manpower come from to sort, clean and pack them all? Mrs. Weisberger - a master organizer - then arranged with the local girls’ high schools to send their students to do so, as part of their chesed program.

Shipping (1990)

Were we to make use of the post office to transport them, the cost would have been astronomical. A new idea was born; let’s ship our own containers by sea. Doing so would cut the cost dramatically. However, although we had many shoes to send, could we fill up a container that holds over a thousand boxes?

There are so many other organizations that send clothing to Eretz Yisroel via the post office. Were we to offer the new service to all of them, we’d accomplish two things: we’d save them a lot of money, while saving us cost by filling our containers.

Thus we started consolidating and shipping full containers from Boro Park to Yerushalayim. Over the years, many children of poor families were uplifted with new footwear, while many other organizations acquired a reliable and cost-effective method to transport their assistance to Israel. At this time, we ship multiple containers per annum from both Boro Park and Lakewood.

Although Mrs. Beinstock has left this world, her memory continues to inspire us. Zichron Baila was named to commemorate her memory and perpetuate her legacy.