Bowery Shoe Drive 2017 with FEIT, the New Museum, and ICP

Tonight, over 61,000 New Yorkers will sleep in homeless shelters, including over 15,000 families and 23,000 children. On the streets, the subway, and in other public spaces sleep thousands more unsheltered homeless people, many living with mental illness or other severe health issues.

In New York City, the number of homeless people sleeping in shelters is 75% higher than it was just ten years ago, the most since the Great Depression. The primary cause of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing, particularly among families, which has risen 39% from 2016. The problem is worsening each year as new residential developments drive up rents and the cost of living increases. The New York City Housing Authority currently has a waiting list of 260,000 families with a less than 3% turnover rate.

In 2015, New York footwear company FEIT partnered with local charity the The Bowery Mission for the first annual FEIT Bowery Shoe Drive, collecting gently worn shoes for those in need and calling attention to the chronic issue of homelessness in New York City. Three years on, FEIT has continued the shoe drive in partnership with fellow Bowery institutions New Museum and the International Center of Photography (ICP) Museum, with all donations benefitting The Bowery Mission to aid in their mission to serve the homeless in New York City. FEIT encourages the public and existing customers to join the fight by donating a gently worn pair of shoes.

As a token of FEIT’s appreciation, those who donate will receive a 20% discount towards their FEIT purchase, a complimentary one-day admission to both New Museum and the ICP Museum, as well as a 10% discount in the ICP Museum shop. Donations will be accepted at both FEIT New York retail locations, at 2 Prince Street and 11A Greenwich Avenue, as well as online at www.feitdirect.com, and at the coat check of New Museum (235 Bowery) and the ICP Museum (250 Bowery). The shoe drive will run from November 16, 2017 to January 1, 2018.

For further information on homelessness in New York City, please visit the website of the Coalition for the Homeless.

About Feit

Designed by Tull Price in New York, all FEIT products are built entirely by hand from natural materials and produced in limited numbers with a carefully selected group of master craftspeople from around the world. FEIT was founded as an evolution of consumerism and production, moving away from the volume and excess and towards quality, sustainability, and the pursuit of product integrity. FEIT operates two brick and mortar stores in New York and one in Sydney, and an online shop. 

About the New Museum

The New Museum is the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to contemporary art. Founded in 1977, the New Museum is a center for exhibitions, information, and documentation about living artists from around the world. From its beginnings as a one-room office on Hudson Street to the inauguration of its first freestanding building on the Bowery designed by SANAA in 2007, the New Museum continues to be a place of experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas.

About ICP

The International Center of Photography (ICP) is the world’s leading institution dedicated to photography and visual culture. Cornell Capa founded ICP in 1974 to preserve the legacy of “concerned photography”—the creation of socially and politically minded images that have the potential to educate and change the world—and the center’s mission endures today, even as the photographic medium and imagemaking practices have evolved. Through its exhibitions, school, public programs, and community outreach, ICP offers an open forum for dialogue about the role that photographs, videos, and new media play in our society. To date, it has presented more than 700 exhibitions and offered thousands of classes at every level. ICP brings together photographers, artists, students, and scholars to create and interpret the realm of the image. Here, members of this unique community are encouraged to explore photography and visual culture as mediums of empowerment and as catalysts for wide-reaching social change.

About The Bowery Mission

The Bowery Mission has served homeless and hungry New Yorkers since 1879.  Last year, The Bowery Mission provided more than 505,000 meals to men, women and children, 97,300 nights of shelter and 56,200 articles of clothing, as well as showers, haircuts, and expert medical and optometric care.  Each meal and every night of shelter is an invitation to residential recovery programs, where men and women get a second chance and lives are transformed from hopelessness to hope.  The Bowery Mission’s residential programs served nearly 300 men and women who are regaining sobriety, reconnecting with family and faith, pursuing educational goals, and preparing for work and independent living.  To ensure that at-risk children have a positive first chance at life, The Bowery Mission’s City Camp and Summer Camp served nearly 1,200 at-risk children from poor city communities. The Bowery Mission expanded its front-line services to new neighborhoods by opening its Community Hope Resource Center in Harlem and by uniting with Goodwill Rescue Mission in Newark, New Jersey.