Boxes of shoes sit in the back room at the south location of Footloose and Fancy.

Some are brand new, still in shoe boxes stacked almost to the ceiling, waiting to be sold. 

Others are gently used, piled along a wall, waiting to be given away.

The shoes were donated by Footloose and Fancy customers during a promotion in which they received a discount on new shoes if they brought in a pair of used shoes, said marketing director Brenda Bergman.

The store will donate the used shoes to the People City’s Mission.

The shoe drive, which ended about a week and a half ago, was spurred by another shoe drive last summer, Bergman said.

Last year, Footloose and Fancy owners Matt and Jane Stricker decided to donate a pair of new shoes to the mission for each pair of shoes they sold during July.

They donated 500 pairs to the mission, Bergman said, and another 500 to Friendship Home. 

The Strickers went to the mission and watched as children who had never had new shoes before found sandals that fit, Bergman said.

And the couple and their staff, who had always been community oriented — wanted to do more.

“I think last year was a huge learning experience for us,” Bergman said.

So they did the second shoe  drive. They recycle the boxes in which shipments of shoes arrive daily, as well office paper and plastic. They had their logo printed on reusable shopping bags and give customers a discount for using them.

“It’s been a really good promotion for us,” she said.

Footloose and Fancy isn’t the only small-local shop finding that eco-friendly products and charitable philosophies go over well with customers.

Coffee shops offer fair-trade coffee. Grocery stores offer reusable shopping bags. And plenty of businesses do other things, too. 

At The Black Market clothing exchange, 1033 O St., most garments in the store are recycled.

Among those that aren’t — Toms shoes, lightweight, stylish slippers store manager Toby Burnham noticed in magazines like Nylon and Bust before his store started carrying them.

For every pair of Toms shoes sold, the company donates a pair to a child in a developing country.

“We sold roundly nine pairs in a week, which for a store like this is really good,” he said.

Customer Jesse Flinck bought a pair the day The Black Market started carrying them.

“I didn’t even know the concept,” he said.

But when found out about it, he liked it.

“How could you not buy a pair?”

Burnham said The Black Market is taking other steps to be a good neighbor, too.

The shop is opening a second location, near Nebraska Wesleyan, he said. The plan is for all the displays and clothing racks and counters to be made from salvaged materials.

And, like so many other places, The Black Market is phasing out plastic bags and moving to reusable ones.

Jason Davis, who owns screen-printing shop Screen Ink, 3312 Madison Ave., said he’s been reusing bags at the grocery store since before doing so was fashionable, which led him to jump on the reusable shopping bag bandwagon.

 “Once I really started reusing plastic bags at the grocery store, I always felt like I got weird looks from people,” he said. “So that spawned the Screen Ink tote bag.”

He did research and ordered the totes from a company called Eco Bags, which uses organic and recycled fibers (he also prints the Footloose and Fancy’s reusable bags).

And he researched other ways to be eco-friendly, too.

He started using soy-based chemicals to clean his screens. He researched T-shirt companies that used recycled or organic fibers or didn’t use sweatshop labor. He sold his car and started biking to work. This summer, he’s hoping to start making deliveries on his bike, too.  

He does little things, too, he said — he uses both sides of sheets of paper and then recycles. He offers paperless invoicing for green-minded customers.

It’s become important to Davis to do as much as he can.

At Footloose and Fancy, the owners and staff are looking for ways to do more, too.

They try to carry eco-friendly shoes — ones made out of recycled tires or by companies that donate part of their profits to charity.

And they’ll continue to do shoes drives, Bergman said. Everyone on staff found the first one, last July, to be inspiring.

“I think that really got the wheels turning for us,” she said.

Reach Cara Pesek at 473-7361 or cpesek@journalstar.com.