Maine firms give to Afghans Gifts sent to aid schoolchildren

BANGOR – When school doors open next Monday for Afghan girls, many of them will enter the buildings in tattered clothes and shoes that they may have been wearing for years.

A couple of weeks from now, though, thousands of girls in Kabul will step into classrooms in new shoes given to them by Maine-based companies. They’ll also be wearing new uniforms made from fabric donated by U.S. companies and made by Afghan women who will be given a job to sew the clothing.

It is hoped the new uniforms and shoes will provide a boost of confidence to the Afghan girls and women who suffered seven years of discrimination under the repressive regime of the Taliban, said a former Maine resident who coordinated the collection of products being shipped to Afghanistan.

Virginia Manuel, who grew up in Littleton and still owns part of her family’s farm there, is a Washington, D.C., consultant to Vital Voices Global Partnership, a worldwide nongovernmental organization of women leaders working to protect women’s rights where they are threatened.

On a whim a few weeks ago, Manuel said, she approached the organization with an idea to ask Maine shoe manufacturers and retailer L.L. Bean about donating goods to be sent to Afghan girls and women. The women’s group already had been asked by Dr. Sima Samar, the Afghan minister for women’s affairs, to help get shoes, socks and fabric for uniforms for 150,000 Afghan schoolgirls in the kindergarten through 12th-grade size range.

Vital Voices started its Back to School Program for Afghan Girls, and companies stepped up to help out, said Manuel in a telephone interview from her Washington, D.C., office.

“We were told that there was a lot of shame in not having a new dress or clothes or shoes on the first day of school,” Manuel said.

The new shoes, socks and uniforms are “what they’ll wear every day maybe for years,” she said.

On Wednesday, executives from the Maine companies met with President and Mrs. Bush at Samuel W. Tucker Elementary School in Alexandria, Va., where the president recognized the pupils for their fund-raising efforts to help Afghan schoolchildren. Afterward, at a private reception in the White House, Bush thanked the Maine businesses for their donations, Manuel said.

In a few weeks’ time, Manuel said, almost 35,000 pairs of shoes and other products were donated from Maine-based companies.

“They understood immediately that they were needed,” Manuel said.

New Balance, with three manufacturing sites in Maine, gave 28,500 pairs of women’s and girl’s shoes, valued at almost $1 million, said New Balance spokeswoman Kathy Shepard. More than 13,000 pairs were made in Massachusetts and the rest were made in Maine or overseas, she said.

She said Manuel’s call for help came at the right time. Materials to make the inventory were available and the staff was geared up to make the shoes.

L.L. Bean gave “a tractor-trailer full” of 5,000 pairs of shoes in addition to blankets, sleeping bags, jackets and housewares, Manuel said.

Sebago Shoe in Westbrook donated 500 pairs of women’s and children’s shoes, all made in Maine, said marketing director Virginia Archambault. Their wholesale value is $15,000 and their retail value is about $30,000, she said.

“We never thought there would be such a big hubbub about this,” said Archambault, noting that CNN mentioned the company’s donation on Wednesday. “It’s just our small part of a much bigger picture and a much bigger issue.”

Bass footwear, with a corporate office in South Portland, donated 400 pairs of shoes, Manuel said, and Liz Claiborne Inc. of New York City contributed 500,000 yards of fabric.

Afghan women will make the uniforms and receive a wage for sewing the clothes, she said.

“Women are going to get jobs and girls are going to be able to get shoes primarily because of Maine manufacturers so far,” Manuel said.

Americans take for granted going to school or wearing new clothes and shoes, Archambault said, and watching the U.S. military efforts to liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban is humbling.

“It’s unbelievable that this has changed their lives in so many ways,” Archambault said.

The donations will be flown on a military plane to Kabul and then women-run programs coordinated by Samar will distribute them, Manuel said.

“Where they are being distributed, we don’t know yet,” she said. “Those decisions are being made.”

For more information about how to donate to Vital Voices, Manuel said she could be contacted by e-mail at virginiamanuel@msn.com.