Published Wednesday, February 03, 2010 9:28 AM
Updated Wednesday, February 03, 2010 9:30 AM

 

Stratford’s girls basketball team wins against Summerville rivals

Stratford’s girls basketball team won the rivalry game with Summerville – but both teams hit game-winners for charity in light of the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Before the Lady Knights’ 39-37 victory Jan. 26, each player from Summerville and Stratford donated some of their own shoes to a world-wide relief effort headed up by Samaritan’s Feet, a non-profit ministry dedicated to changing lives through its Shoes of Hope program.

“It was great,” Stratford coach David Poole said. “We had each player donate at least one pair of shoes. We even had some fans in the stands donate some shoes right off their feet.”

At the end of the night, following Summerville’s 49-43 win in the boys game, a total of 89 shoes had been given. By the time Poole took the shoes over to Charleston Southern as part of the next step in the process to get the shoes distributed around the world, the total was over 100 and some clothes had been given, too.

“They will get placed around the world or maybe even locally,” Poole said. “It was a good effort of philanthropy.”

Charleston Southern and other Big South schools adopted Samaritan’s Feet as its community service challenge with a goal of collecting 17,000 pairs of shoes.

As part of that effort, CSU basketball coaches Barclay Radebaugh and Julie Goodenough, and their staffs, coached in bare feet for their teams’ games with Coastal Carolina Jan. 23.