- April 20, 2024
-
-
Loading
Loading
Palm Coast resident Henry Reid, 84, still remembers what it was like to go to school barefoot. He was 7, and it was the Great Depression.
“I didn’t have any shoes, and the other kids laughed at me,” he said.
And he still remembers the day his teacher, Ms. Wicker, called him over after class to give him a brand new pair so he wouldn’t have to trudge to school barefoot in the cold.
Now Reid, retired from his career as an auto insurance company president, is working with the Flagler County Education Foundation to make sure other kids have a day like that: He’s raising money for 900 pairs of shoes for kids though the Education Foundation’s S.T.U.F.F. Bus program, which distributes clothing and school supplies to children in need.
The shoes, bought at Walmart, cost about $15 a pair, and Reid has already raised $1,500 for the first 100.
“It’s just so important for children to know that somebody cares about them and wants to make them comfortable,” he said.
And that comfort isn’t just physical, Reid said. When kids’ shoes are old and worn and drawing other students’ jeers, “it can make them think they’re not as good as the kids who have nice shoes,” he said.
The Education Foundation has run the S.T.U.F.F. Bus program for years. It started as a way to get school supplies to kids whose parents couldn’t buy them, Executive Director Deborah Williams said.
The Education Foundation would fill an old school bus with supplies and drop them off at area schools. Teachers would ask kids to stay after class one day, and then hand them their new supplies. The initiative soon expanded to include clothing.
“Shoes for the past couple of years have been a real need,” Williams said.
When Reid learned of the S.T.U.F.F. Bus initiative years ago he gave donations, but this year, Williams said, she told him how many pairs of shoes the foundation needs, and “he said he wanted to make it his personal campaign.”
The Education Foundation works with teachers and guidance counselors in Flagler’s elementary, middle and high schools to identify children who need some help. Kids on free and reduced-price lunch qualify for consideration.
Most of the kids who will receive shoes are already wearing a pair, but the ones they’re wearing are falling apart or no longer fit, Reid said.
“You see, particularly, boys come in with old pairs of shoes where they’ve cut the toes out and their feet are hanging out of the things,” he said. “And they’re walking in these things, but you know they need adequate shoes.”
Some of the shoes the Education Foundation donates will be given out in the next few months to children who already need them, and others will be bought and ordered later in the year as children’s shoes wear out or become too small, and need to be replaced.
“Children can’t just go out and buy a pair of shoes. They don’t even realize how desperately they need things sometimes,” Reid said. “I think it would create an entirely different attitude to have a teacher call them in and say, ‘We have these people here who are going to give you a pair of shoes.’ It’s just going to make a difference in their lives.”
HOW TO HELP
To donate online, go to http://www.flagleredfoundation.org/stuffbus and click “donate now.”
Or send a check to 1769 E. Moody Blvd, Bunnell, FL 32110 made out to the Flagler County Education Foundation, and write “Shoes4Kids” in the note line.
