Soccer Sisters Land Huge Donation From Job Lot

The following press release was provided by SoccerRECYCLE.

West Warwick, RI.  Friday morning Ocean State Job Lot truck driver Gustavo Martinez and the company’s director of marketing David Sarlitto pulled up to the Arpin Group warehouse in West Warwick in a big 18-wheeler.  It was packed with 3,200 brand new soccer, football and all-purpose athletic shoes destined for Haiti. While this was not your typical Job Lot delivery, it would not be a typical moving project for the worldwide moving services company, The Arpin Group.

The two Rhode Island companies enthusiastically joined forces to help two North Kingstown teenagers, . The shoes, along with 20 boxes of soccer gear the young ladies had collected at the end of the spring soccer season, needed to be shipped.  The first destination would be the U.S. Soccer Foundation shipping center in North Carolina, hundreds of miles away, and then eventually to Haiti – 1,600 miles from Rhode Island. Nearly 400,000 Haitians are still living in settlement camps, following a hurricane and an earthquake just a little more than three years ago.  New soccer gear would brighten the kids depressing lives.

After seeing recent news stories about the SoccerRECYCLE program, Ocean State Job Lot co-owner Alan Perlman reached out to Cassandra and Christiana with an offer. He said the company wanted to donate 3,200 athletic shoes to the SoccerRECYCLE program, if the ladies wanted them.  It was a tractor-trailer sized offer that the young ladies did not intend to refuse.

According to Job Lot’s David Sarlitto, this is the largest athletic equipment donation Job Lot has made in its 35-year history. “These shoes were part of our warehouse stock that was headed for the stores, but the decision was made that there was a better use in Haiti.”

Christiana Layman was stunned as the forklifts unloaded one large skid after another from the trailer.

“This donation is more than we could ever have dreamed of," said said. "We are just so excited by the amount of shoes and what this will do for so many people in Haiti who have so little.”

To get this enormous donation from Rhode Island to North Carolina, they contacted Matt Dolan, Chief Operating Officer of the the Arpin Group, asking the company to transport the Job Lot donation to North Carolina. Arpin has helped them in the past but Cassandra Layman worried that “it’s one thing to ask Arpin to send 10 to 20 boxes of uniforms and gear. It’s something else asking them to send a tractor-trailer load!”

Dolan agreed immediately to do it. But he had to chuckle at first since the request came during the busiest time of the year for their company.

“We are happy to help get this athletic gear to the people in Haiti who are still suffering," he said "If this lessens their burden, it is worth every effort.”

Dolan expects the delivery to be made in August, maybe sooner.