Each Big South men's and women's basketball coach will go Barefoot for Bare Feet at least once during the season to help raise awareness and support the conference's initiative with Samaritan's Feet. In conjunction with these games, Big South member institution Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) groups will collect new shoes as well as monetary donations, as a $5 donation equals one pair of shoes.

Fans attending the game on Thursday night can receive a free general admission ticket to a future Bulldog women's basketball or baseball game with a donation of a pair of children's shoes.

The Barefoot for Bare Feet Coaches Initiative was conceived in 2007 when IUPUI Coach Ron Hunter coached a game in his bare feet to raise awareness for the plight of impoverished children who suffer from foot-borne diseases and infections due to a lack of shoes.

Fans can text the word DOGS to 85944 on their cell phone and this will give a five dollar donation to Samaritan's Feet.

Samaritan's Feet is a humanitarian and relief organization that puts shoes on the feet of children all around the world. The goal of their organization is to provide 10 million pairs of shoes for 10 million impoverished people in 10 years. To date, more than two million pairs of shoes for children around the world have been distributed.

UNC Asheville women's basketball coach Betsy Blose will coach in her bare feet on Monday, March 1 when the Bulldogs host Radford at Justice Center.

ABOUT SAMARITAN'S FEET (www.samaritansfeet.org)
Samaritan's Feet is a humanitarian relief organization that puts shoes on kids feet all around the world.  Our team of ambassadors demonstrate servant leadership by washing the feet of all the people receiving the shoes and share with each recipient a message of hope.  There are over 300 million children who wake up every morning without shoes.  They suffer from diseases, infection and many other ailments because they don't have shoes to wear.  Needless to say, they can't play sports without shoes.  Our founder, Emmanuel (Manny) Ohonme is originally from Nigeria and grew up very poor.  He received his first pair of shoes at the age of 9 from a missionary, who also taught him how to play basketball.  These shoes allowed him to run and play without getting hurt and helped him get better at sports, specifically basketball.  He started playing travel basketball during his childhood and eventually played high school basketball in Nigeria.  God blessed him with the ability to play basketball at a high level and eventually earned a scholarship to play at the University of North Dakota - Lake Region.  While in school, Manny earned his bachelors and masters degrees.  He had a chance to play basketball overseas, but he turned it down to concentrate on his education.   After graduation, he spent ten years in the logistics business.

Six years ago, he left a lucrative marketing and supply chain job to start Samaritan's Feet, a 501 c3 organization whose goal is to put 10 million pairs of shoes on children's feet in 10 years around the world.  Samaritan's Feet was formed in 2003 and over six years later over 2.5 million pairs of shoes have been donated.  Our focus is on children from USA, Africa, South America and the Caribbean. Our past domestic projects have taken us to Indianapolis, Terre Haute, Fort Wayne, Biloxi, MS, Long Beach, MS; South Dakota, Jolo and Bradshaw, WV, St. Louis, MO, Charlotte, NC, Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland.  In addition, we have visited 46 other countries including, Tsunami- Sri Lanka; Romania, Ukraine, Haiti, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Ecuador, South Africa, Jamaica, Guyana, Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Malawi, Gambia, and Burundi.