Shoes for Sherpas

Breaking News (12/10/2020):

Shoes for Sherpas is proud to announce a new partnership with Italian boot manufacturer Garmont.  We are so excited, and feel blessed to be a part of this fantastic partnership! Garmont is creating a co-branded boot with the Shoes for Sherpas logo, is donating many boots to Nepali Sherpas, and will be providing Shoes for Sherpas with royalties from the sale of the co-branded boots.  Read more here: New Partnership with Italian Footwear Brand, Garmont #StayWild #HopeWild #ShoesForSherpas

Sarki Sherpa wearing his new boots from Garmont (March 2020)

Trail to Annapurna Base Camp

Sarki soaking in the view

Our flagship project: 2012-Present

Volunteers help fit shoes for a young Nepali boy. (2014)

Can you imagine doing this job in sandals? For many porters in rural Nepal, the cost of appropriate footwear is beyond their reach.

Shoes for Sherpas provides footwear to Nepali porters and villagers. To date, we have collected, inspected, transported, and fit over 3,000 pairs of shoes to Nepal!

The Sherpas are an ethnic group living primarily in the mountainous regions of eastern Nepal, and many make their living as porters in the tourism trade as well as in the day-to-day transport of goods from village to village.   Since quality footwear is often either unavailable or unaffordable, our goal is to provide as much footwear as possible to those living in the region.

Shoes for Sherpas is a project of the Colorado Nepal Alliance, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable organization. You can read a bit about the story of the Colorado Nepal Alliance and our projects on the About Us page. We’re more than just shoes!

Bags of shoes at the start of their journey to Nepal.

More Information

You can view pictures and dispatches from our past shoe distributions below, and we’ll be posting new reports from our other trips by spring. Until then, start from the beginning with our first large-scale shoe distribution in the Everest Region in 2012. Or read about our multi-village shoe distribution in the Dhading District during June of 2013.

We’ll be adding more about how we collect, inspect, transport, and distribute all these shoes in rural Nepal as soon as we can.

A note about donations:

Email: info@ShoesForSherpas.org

Note: Nepalis have small feet. We only accept new boots up to men’s size 9 or women’s size 10.  Please, they need to be new boots.  Nepali Customs has made it impossible for us to import used footwear. Although we’ve accepted used boots in the past, they are now being confiscated at the airport.