Each year the Uganda Children's Project buys shoes and socks for orphaned and needy children in Uganda.  The shoes are bought in bulk from wholesale suppliers in Uganda both to support the local economy and because the cost of transporting shoes into Uganda is prohibitive. The cost for a pair of school shoes and socks is $20. Shoes represent hope for desperately poor children in Uganda because without them they cannot attend school. Many children are kept from the education they desperately need simply for need of a pair of shoes. This coming Christmas will be the seventh year for the Uganda Children’s Shoe Project. In 2011, Jim Steele and David Wahlstedt delivered 700 pairs of top-quality Bata shoes and socks to children in Kampala and in rural schools outside the city. Every dollar given goes directly to the purchase of shoes. This year, a team from the States will arrive to deliver shoes in December of 2012.