Two unlikely people led a charity drive at Creekview Elementary School recently. It wasn’t the principal or one of the teachers at the Alabaster school. It was instead a school bus driver named Cissy McNish and a school custodian named Brenda Worthy.

The pair are members of Kingwood Christian Church in Alabaster. The church is sending several members, including McNish and Worthy, on a mission trip this summer to Guatemala.

The church has a missionary in the country of whom, McNish said, church leaders asked for advice on what poor children in Guatemala were needing most. The answer, she said, were shoes.

Lots of them.

McNish said students on her bus route found out about the mission trip and started donating their used and unneeded shoes.

Word soon spread to other school children, she said. So McNish with Worthy’s help set up girls shoes boxes and boys shoes boxes and began encouraging children to take part in the charity.

As of last week over five large boxes of shoes had been collected.

Those shoes along with two more boxes filled with clothes were packed up and are now on their way to Guatemala.

&uot;Every morning the children came in and tied the shoes together and put them in the boxes,&uot; Worthy said.

&uot;One boy even gave the shoes off of his feet. I think that’s awesome.&uot;

&uot;It’s wonderful,&uot; McNish said. &uot;It makes the children happy to know they are helping children not as privileged as they are.&uot;