His Little Feet donated 16 pairs of Nike dancing shoes to the Jordan High Dance Team. Photos courtesy of His Little Feet.
His Little Feet (HLF) is teaming up with Nike and HavASole to provide brand new running shoes to the Washington Middle School Girls Track Team this upcoming Thursday.
HavASole is a nonprofit organization in Los Angeles that gives His Little Feet smaller size shoes for youth. HLF founder Hali Wolf says now that the organization has greater access to larger groups that involve running, dance, and other types of athletics, she wants to focus on helping students obtain the proper shoes they need to prevent injury.
In celebration of its fifth anniversary, HLF is focusing on providing more athletic shoes to youths playing sports. Starting this year, HLF began donating shoes to athletic teams, including last month’s donation of 16 pairs of Nike dancing shoes to the Jordan High Dance Team. The track team at Washington Middle School will be the second athletic team to receive shoes this year, with the Jordan High School Track team set to receive a donation in March.
“Proper fitting shoes make all the difference in sports,” said Wolf. “Every child deserves to have shoes that fit so they can run with comfort that are developed specifically with their sport in mind.”
HLF works with seven other schools located in the greater Long Beach area including Jane Addams Elementary, Precious Lamb Preschool and Signal Hill Elementary. They also work with two other schools in Santa Ana.
All the extra shoes at HLF are donated to Beacon for Him in Long Beach, a nonprofit homeless outreach ministry.
“There are over 8,000 kids who don’t have a permanent address that are considered homeless in our city and tens of thousands more in So Cal,” said Wolf. “We want to bring awareness to childhood homelessness and poverty because the little feet are totally overlooked.”
The organization also has a shoe cleaning party every month where they write handwritten love notes that go in every pair of donated shoes. Over 12,000 pairs of shoes have been donated to HLF and about 3,000 pairs were given out last year. Other schools help collect every year from Wilson High, Millikan High, Rogers Middle School and Newcomb Academy.
HLF distributed 200 pairs last month and are planning on giving 250 pairs next week. Nike running shoes will be given to 16 female athletes including their coach next Thursday at Washington Middle School.
HLF is also having a fundraiser at Spaghettini on March 5 at 7:00PM. Tickets are $25 and will go to new pairs of shoes for students in Long Beach. For more information and to purchase tickets for the fundraiser, visit the link here.