Photo Provided Grace Presbyterian Church’s Girls of Grace Youth Group cools off at the Barkcamp State Park near Belmont.

MARTINS FERRY — Grace Presbyterian Church’s Girls of Grace Youth Group is hosting its first shoe drive fundraiser.

The fundraiser is underway and continues until Aug. 1. The Girls of Grace are asking for donations of gently worn shoes, boots, sandals, flip-flops and every style show in between. Donations can be dropped off at Grace Presbyterian Church at 7 N. Fourth Street.

The Grace Presbyterian Church office is open from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday.

Girls of Grace head adviser Theresa Scott said that anyone who cannot go to the dropoff site can call her at 740-275-7940 to schedule a meeting in a reasonable location.

The Girls of Grace Youth Group was formed two years ago after Scott decided to depart from her role as a Girl Scout leader due to differences in opinions.

“We started as Girl Scouts, but I didn’t like how Girl Scouts was run so I left Girl Scouts and all of the girls followed me. The church was nice enough to say, ‘Hey why don’t you join with us and we can make it a youth group, and so that is what we did,” Scott said.

The shoe drive is being run through an organization called Funds.org with a quota of 2,500 pairs of shoes needed to be donated to participate. Scott said that if the Girls of Grace does not meet the quota, it will have to pay a $125 pickup fee for the organization to come and pick up the donations.

Although the youth group is no stranger to hosting charity events, this is its first time doing a shoe drive.

“We usually do fundraisers that pertain to food, like we go to car shows and serve different kinds of food. We usually spend $300 on food and then end up making $300 from selling the food. I wanted to try something different, that we hadn’t done before, and came across the website for the shoe drive,” Scott added. “It’s nothing out of pocket on our end, and all we have to do is collect shoes.”

If the Girls of Grace Youth Group meets the shoe donation quota, Funds.org will donate $1,300 to the youth group.

“The shoe drive will donate to the girls in every way possible, from meeting supplies to the multiple trips that we do in the summer. We go camping and then usually go to an amusement park or a water park for a special day. We take the girls swimming when it’s really hot out,” she said.

The Girls of Grace Youth Group is free to join and members’ ages range from 5 years old to 17 years old. It meets at 6 p.m. every other Thursday at Grace Presbyterian Church.