Healthy inspiration SHE’S IN IT, HEART AND SOLE

WRITER: JAMES COMBS

For the past three months, Rubie Wheeler has collected 1,800 pairs of shoes. That’s a big soul — and lots of soles. Inside the Clermont resident’s garage are boxes of shoes stacked to the ceiling.

The shoes are delivered to developing nations where footwear is scarce and many residents walk barefoot every day, risking infections and parasites.

“America has become a throw-away society,” Rubie says. “We take shoes for granted, while people in extremely poor countries value and appreciate them. That makes what I’m doing worthwhile. I love being a do-gooder.”

Her work is even more impressive considering she wears a pacemaker and battles Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects the body’s connective tissue. Not long ago, patients with the disease lived only into their mid-40s.

Rubie is 81. One reason for her longevity, she says, is volunteerism. Throughout her life, she has been actively involved in causes for cancer, animals and young Scouts. She refuses to let health problems impede her.

That’s why she became excited upon learning Women for Hospice was collecting shoes for Orlando-based Soles4Souls. Rubie, a Women for Hospice member of 13 years, jumped in feet-first.

Without access to hightech communication (no home computer and no email account), she learned the power of a typewriter can be just as effective. Rubie typed and mailed 200 letters to family, friends and various community members. She paid for the postage herself. In addition, she spoke to local civic and social clubs and at neighborhood meetings.

“I’m not high-tech because I feel it’s an invasion of privacy,” she says. “I live a simple life. However, I know how to promote these things because I’ve been doing it throughout my adult life.”

Immediately, piles of shoes began appearing on her doorstep.

“Some of my snowbird friends brought their shoes from up North, and I had an old group of friends from Miami deliver a truckload of shoes. One man whose wife had died seven years ago called me and offered to give me all the shoes from her closet that he had never bothered to clean out.”

Rubie receives a little of everything, from athletic shoes and hiking boots to dress shoes and cowboy boots. She ties them into pairs and keeps them in boxes until her garage becomes crammed. At that point, a Cornerstone Hospice volunteer visits her home and loads the boxes onto a truck.

“I would say 90 percent of the footwear I receive is in nearly perfect condition,” she says.

“And some of the shoes have never been worn.”

Despite her health issues, volunteering makes Rubie feel amazingly alive.

“For me, volunteerism is a happy space,” she says. “I love people and want to help bring a little sunshine in their lives. I don’t do this for praise or glory. I do it to help less fortunate people.”