GROUPS of children clad in rags will be asking shoppers for money in Darlington's Cornmill Centre next week.
The youngsters, from Darlington and Newton Aycliffe YMCA's Millennium Volunteers project, will be putting their hearts and soles into cleaning shoes to raise money for street children programmes in Columbia and India run by Y Care International, the development agency of the YMCA movement.
The children will also be buffing the boots of local police officers as part of the fund-raising mission.
Millennium Volunteer outreach worker Joanne Nelson said: "Darlington may seem far away from the harsh social and economic realities of the developing world, but we aim to raise awareness of Y Care International's overseas work."
Alison Sanderson, of Y Care International, said: "Shoe- shining is one way of surviving on the streets. We also have a shoe shine pack, designed to raise awareness of the conditions in which young people are forced to survive on the streets in some of the poverty-stricken regions of the world."
The event will take place next Friday and Saturday.
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