For the second year in a row, The River Fund and Payless Shoesource are teaming up to provide underprivileged children with one of the simplest but most needed items—shoes.
This Sunday, more than 50 children serviced by the Richmond Hill-based nonprofit will be receiving shoes through the Payless Shoesource store on 117-08 Liberty Avenue in South Richmond Hill as part of the nationwide shoe store’s Payless Gives Shoes 4 Kids initiative.
A grassroots effort from the Topeka, Kansas-based shoe retailer—which has more than 4,000 stores nationwide—
the initiative gives $1.2 million in free shoes to children of families in need.
Out of 3,100 applications submitted to Payless Shoesource, The River Fund was selected as one of several nonprofits that will be part of the program. This means that dozens of children will shop for free shoes using coupons from Payless Shoesource.
Swami Durga Das, executive director of The River Fund, said that the number of shoe coupons his nonprofit received this year, worth $2,000, was nearly triple what they received last year, which was around $700.
“We’re very excited about it,” he said. “It means that we have that opportunity to help provide the children we serve a basic and essential item.”
This year marks the second year that the Richmond Hill nonprofit—which is also a food pantry whose mission statement is to feed and empower the 100,000-plus Queens residents they serve each year—has participated in the shoe program. They became involved with the program after a volunteer told Das about it last year, which led to the nonprofit applying and being accepted as a partner.
A multi-service group that also provides mobile food programs, holiday toy drives, nutritional outreach programs for children and food assistance programs, Das said that the need for shoes is among the most frequent requests that clients of his program request.
“Shoes are a big need, because they are so expensive,” he said, noting that his group has partnered with other companies in the past that have provided free shoes to the nonprofit’s clients. The difference with this program, Das notes, is that this is the first time where clients are able to choose their own shoes—which goes a long way towards the nonprofit’s mission of empowering their clients.
“It’s also a big help because families that we serve can take that money which they would spend towards $60 or $100 shoes and spend it somewhere else,” he said.
Payless first launched the free shoe program in 2008 by partnering with localized not-for-profit partners throughout the country in giving away $1 million in free shoes. The program extended to Canada, Puerto Rico and 11 Latin American countries in 2009, delivering $1.2 million in free shoes.
Of the program, LuAnn Via, president and CEO of Payless ShoeSource, wrote on the program’s website, “We want as many children as possible to experience the simple joy of a new pair of shoes. We want them to walk into one of our stores, look up at rows of shoeboxes with big eyes, and point to the pair that makes them smile.”
By Jean-Paul Salamanca
