Charlotte, NC - December 23, 2009: Samaritan’s Feet has partnered with North Carolina-based non-profit Gene Smart Compassion to form Heroes Helping Heroes, an innovative new program aimed at creating sustainable communities for orphans around the world. Heroes Helping Heroes is currently focused on Masoyi, South Africa, a shanty-town with a population of 250,000 people, 50,000 of which are orphans. Masoyi has seen entire generations virtually wiped out due to AIDs, malaria, tuberculosis and malnutrition; the future of the community now lies at the feet of these shoeless, hungry and often homeless orphans. Through three separate projects, Heroes Helping Heroes has created the blueprint for long-term solutions in impoverished areas by providing the children of Masoyi with housing, food, and clothing, as well as education and future employment opportunities.

The first project created by Heroes Helping Heroes is A Dollar Adoption, which is designed to unite local interest groups in America, including schools, University organizations, churches and businesses to "adopt" an orphan family in Masoyi. Some of these orphan families are homeless, while the majority live in houses constructed of "scrap materials," including plywood, cardboard, plastic and sheet metal. They also lack access to regular meals.  Any group that takes part in A Dollar Adoption will be asked to raise $6,000; first and foremost, the adoption funds the construction of a new, sturdy cinderblock home for the child-headed household. It also provides the family with daily meals for a year, and supplies new school uniforms and shoes for each child. The adoption gives the family a vegetable garden starter kit -- a wheel barrow full of seeds, fertilizer, garden tools and chicken wire. Finally, a percentage from each adoption helps to fund educational, spiritual and vocational programs in Masoyi to provide long-term help for the community. For the adult orphans, this vocational schooling includes training in construction to earn a fair wage by building these homes in their own communities. In essence, A Dollar Adoption will be the project that helps support sustainable solutions for the orphans of Masoyi, by not only providing housing and food, but also education and job creation.

"The little children in Africa live and love each day as heroes," said Dr. Floyd "Ski" Chilton, founder of Gene Smart Compassion. "We are given a remarkable opportunity to become heroes as we nurture them."

Mount Tabor High School (Winston-Salem, NC) is the beta test for A Dollar Adoption, and is currently raising funds to adopt the Mambane family, a child-headed household in Masoyi. Hillsdale United Methodist Church (Davie County, NC) has pledged to adopt an orphan family on December 24, 2009. Other orphan families available for adoption can currently be found on both www.samaritansfeet.org and www.genesmartcompassion.org

Heroes Helping Heroes also allows individuals to provide instant help through innovative new website donation tools appropriately titled Meals for a Month and Smart Start. Meals for a Month is a feeding program that allows anyone to help curb malnutrition in Masoyi. For only $12, an orphan can be fed daily meals for an entire month. Smart Start is an effort to support education in Masoyi; with a one-time gift of $100, a sponsor can provide an orphan with a school uniform, a pair of shoes, necessary school supplies, and a mentor for spiritual guidance.

Samaritan's Feet was founded by Emmanuel Ohonme and is based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. Ohonme was born in Nigeria, and was given his first pair of shoes at the age of nine by a missionary from The United States. This gift eventually led to a basketball scholarship for Ohonme in the United States and years later was the purpose behind the creation of Samaritan's Feet. The mission of Samaritan's Feet is to put ten million pairs of shoes on ten million orphans in the next ten years.  In February of this year, K-Mart and Protege Footwear partnered to donate 1 million shoes to Samaritan's Feet.   

Gene Smart Compassion was founded in 2008 by Dr. Chilton, a leading biomedical researcher and author of several books including "Inflammation Nation" and "The Gene Smart Diet," and is based out of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  Gene Smart Compassion's mission is to empower orphans and other vulnerable children to reach their full potential and contribute to a strong future for Africa.