INDIANAPOLIS — Gov. Mitch Daniels worked barefoot Friday morning to raise awareness of a nonprofit group that collects and donates new shoes to needy people around the world.

Daniels held a press conference in his Statehouse office, answering questions about the state budget and other important issues while standing barefoot in front of a pile of shoes donated to Samaritan’s Feet.

“Do you know how hard it is to give serious answers to questions (barefoot)?” Daniels joked to reporters. “I’m not sure you guys take me seriously anyway.”

Daniels and his staff members made donations to Samaritan’s Feet, a Fort Mill, S.C.-based group trying to collect 1 million pairs of shoes this year.

Group founder Manny Ohonme and IUPUI men’s basketball coach Ron Hunter joined the governor for the press conference, urging Hoosiers to participate by making donations. They said Daniels is the first governor to go barefoot for the cause.

Hunter has coached barefoot from the sideline before to raise awareness of the organization and will do so again on Saturday. He hopes more than 1,000 high school and college basketball coaches will join him coaching barefoot over the weekend.

Butler’s Brad Stevens, South Dakota State’s Scott Nagy, University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Matt Brown, Indiana State’s Kevin McKenna and Detroit Mercy’s Ray McCallum are among the Division I coaches who will go shoeless, the organization has said.

Hunter will also be working with the group to distribute 1,000 pairs of shoes and socks to Indianapolis children Monday.

“Right now our economy is so bad that we wanted to be able to help kids who can’t afford a pair of shoes,” Hunter said.

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On the Web:

www.samaritansfeet.org