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How Philly's discarded shoes are saving lives in Haiti and Africa

When President Trump's "s-hole countries" remark made headlines earlier this year, Philly scrapper Ogbonna Hagins, a/k/a Philly Green Man, was particularly agitated. He has been helping immigrants who've settled in Philadelphia send shoes to their families in these long-impoverished, and lately defamed, regions of Africa and Haiti for the past decade.

Ogbonna Hagins hunts for treasure on Ninth Street in South Philadelphia including a sweeper.
Ogbonna Hagins hunts for treasure on Ninth Street in South Philadelphia including a sweeper.Read moreDAVID SWANSON / Staff Photographer

Still other finds travel much farther, to sustain families in places like Haiti and Sierra Leone.

It turned out lots of other immigrants had the same idea — and Hagins wants to supply shoes to all of them.