KITCHENER -- A 12-year-old Kitchener girl is getting close to her goal of collecting 25,000 pairs of shoes for charity.

Maya Reiter Lee has been on a two-year journey to collect shoes for Soles 4 Souls.

The Waterloo charity provides shoes to those who need them all across the world.

When CTV News spoke to Lee in July, she had collected 16,000 pairs.

Since then, she's now topped 18,000.

While Lee’s happy to be closer to her goal, she says it’s been tough.

“It has been a bit slow since the pandemic started, but now that we had our first event, we’ve been getting more shoes and attention for the cause.”

Lee is looking for new or gently-used shoes.

Donations can be dropped off at the following locations:

  • Crunch Fitness gyms in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and Stratford
  • Waterloo Kung Fu Academy
  • Cambridge Memorial Hospital 
  • Guelph General Hospital 
  • Autoworx Auto Mechanic on Woolwich Street in Breslau
  • The Running Room on Fairway Road in Kitchener