Five questions with ... Daniel Matea, founder of Heart and Soles Ministries

Daniel Matea is the founder of Heart and Soles Ministries.

He was born in Costa Mesa, California, but has spent most of his life in Stark County and currently lives in Alliance. Matea is a 41-year-old Christian who founded his organization in 2018.

"I went to McKinley High School in Canton and later graduated top of my class from the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts in New York City," he said. "I am engaged to a wonderful Filipina woman named Abegail Flores, and how we met is how Heart and Soles began."

He has a pitbull/boxer mix dog named Layla and three cats named Jazz, Sasha and Nick Chubb.

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Why did you start Heart and Soles?

In 2017, I was randomly chatting with people online trying to encourage them. In September of that year, I met a Filipina woman on Facebook named Abegail, who lived in Luzon Philippines.

She was going through a difficult time and she and I became friends as I tried to help her through it. Toward the end of 2018, I was on a video chat with her when I noticed her nieces and nephews were always barefoot.

Thinking they liked to be barefoot all the time, I made a comment about it and Abegail informed me that a lot of them couldn't afford a pair of shoes. One of her nephews, Ryhn, had an infection on his foot and because he was special needs, it was difficult for his family to get him to rest his foot so it could heal. Instead, he kept running on it and they were worried it would get worse.

I thought what if we supplied him with a pair of shoes. He could keep playing and his parents could keep his foot wrapped so his wound would heal. Since it was almost Christmas time, I got my friends and family to help and we bought a bunch of toys, candy and shoes for the kids and shipped them off to the Philippines.

On Christmas Day, I got to watch as the kids opened all their presents. When the kids started opening up the shoes, they got ecstatic about receiving them. I was expecting them to behave like most American kids behave when they receive clothes or shoes, and I thought they would say thanks and move back to the toys.

Instead, they forgot about the toys, and candy, and were so excited about the shoes they started crying. One little girl named TinTin grabbed her shoes and started hugging them and crying. I was so blown away by their response.

In the coming days, the kids in the neighborhood found out and started showing up asking if there was anything they could do to get a pair of shoes, as well. I soon realized this was a bigger deal than I thought, and without even a plan, or a name, Heart and Soles was born.

I started going around to local churches, businesses, and pantries to see if I could raise support to help even more children. I realized the local shelters, and clothing pantries, had very few shoes of their own to hand out to the local community. The shoe problem seemed to be here, as well.

Millions of children all over the world go without shoes for their feet simply because they can't afford them. They try to use rubber tires, two-liter bottles, or anything they can hold together to get some sort of comfort for their feet.

What makes matters worse is we live in a world where we dump trash everywhere, and these kids are then forced to walk on it. This becomes a more serious problem when the trash they step on is broken bottles, rusty nails or even needles.

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Would you detail some of the projects the organization has been involved with?

Heart and Soles continued to expand, and even though our mission was geared toward kids, we supplied shoes for adults, too, if they needed them. We became the No. 1 supplier of shoes in the Stark County area.

We supply shoes for all the local Stark County pantries and homeless outreach centers like Michael's World, Crossroads and Clothed in Righteousness. Last year, we partnered with Clothed in Righteousness and gave away shoes to over 110 families that needed them in our local community.

We also began supplying for the Pregnancy Center in Alliance so that any mom that needed shoes for their kids could get them free of charge. We supplied cleats to McKinley High School and Alliance City Schools, so any child who wants to play a sport can do that without worrying if they can afford the proper cleats. We also took our Heart and Soles Team to the Homeless Stand Down at FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland.

We work hard to help those around us in need, and fashioned Heart and Soles into a servant-oriented charity that helped and supported our local communities. We started a yearly sandals giveaway in Luzon, Philippines, and every Christmas since 2019, we have supplied sandals to any child who needs them in the town where Abegail lives.

Abegail heads up the project to help Heart and Soles reach the children in her village. Beginning in 2021, we started to expand even more and took on a project where we supplied shoes to every child at an orphanage (Christ Children's Care) in Sierra Leone, Africa, and we hope to help even more orphanages in that area this year.

We have also teamed up with Polish Christian Ministries to supply shoes to the Ukrainian refugees coming across the border into Poland. A lot of these refugees have had to walk hundreds of miles to get to safety and their shoes are destroyed, and a lot of places are not set up to supply shoes to them.

What is your personal philosophy when it comes to helping others?

Heart and Soles was started with the mission to help those in need. Shoes are something that are often a forgotten item in helping others yet when you are the one without them, it can be the only thing you think about.

When I speak at churches or events, I often ask people to imagine stepping on a Lego, and think about how bad that hurts, because some of the people we help deal with that pain all day. Or imagine walking hundreds of miles in shoes with worn out soles where you can feel every step along the way, or with holes in your shoes where your feet are so wet and cold that's all you can think about.

There are children and parents all over the world who worry about them every day. We just want to help them, one child at a time, until someday we can make it so no child has to worry about it again.

I always remember the Scripture in James 2:14-17 where it talks about faith without works is dead, and in Matthew 25:40 where Jesus says "Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me."

Would you share a special talent that your co-workers or others would be surprised to hear you have?

I can solve a Rubik's Cube, I can do card tricks and I have a degree in film production. Plus, I have almost 9 million views on my Google reviews.

What are some of your favorite places to visit in Stark County?

I love to try new places and see new things. But my favorite place would have to be the Walborn Reservoir in Alliance.

Editor's note: Five questions with ... is a Sunday feature that showcases a member of the Stark County community. If you'd like to recommend someone to participate, send an email to newsroom@cantonrep.com.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Daniel Matea answers five questions about Heart and Soles Ministries