Senior organizes charity dodgeball

Broderick Thompson, a senior graduating in May 2011, is looking to set a world record and help a charity at the same time.

Since his sophomore year, Thompson has worked with the national charity Samaritan’s Feet to bring awareness to IU’s campus and pairs of shoes to countless people around the world.

“Some people wait all day, like 10 hours in a line, just to get a pair of shoes,” he said. “And at the end of the day sometimes they don’t get one. I always think if I can get one more pair, then that last person would get shoes that day. That’s what keeps me going. That’s what drives me.”

It was nearly two years ago that he first witnessed the charity in action on an ESPN special where coaches and players traveled abroad to deliver shoes in Peru, he said.

“I got goose bumps for 20 minutes after that,” he said. “I’m getting goose bumps again now just thinking about it.”

The show sparked a desire to give back, a desire that had been instilled in Thompson throughout his upbringing. His mother, a breast cancer survivor, and father, an Indianapolis firefighter, both imparted the attitude that Thompson shares today.

“My parents ... we always say we are infinitely blessed,” he said. “Even in rough times we have so much more than so many people in the world.”

By the following spring of his junior year, Thompson had established a chapter of Samaritan’s Feet on campus and started a club.

To this day, he said, it has raised more than $1,000 and donated more than 60 pairs of shoes around the world, but Thompson said he has much bigger plans for the future.

“It will be in two months when we break the world record for dodgeball,” he said of his favorite college memory.

Thompson’s final contribution to the chapter will be organizing the largest game of dodgeball in the world to benefit Samaritan’s Feet this April, and for the students who were present at Welcome Week this past fall, it is the second chance they’ll have to participate.

“Even though we can’t see it here, there’s someone out there with a pair of shoes because of what we’ve done,” he said.

For more information visit www.samaritansfeet.org or the group’s page, Samaritan’s Feet Club (Indiana University), on Facebook.