Shoes 4 the Shoeless

06/10/2026

Sometimes kids do not want to wear their new shoes; they want to put their old ones back on, no matter what condition they are in.

It is usually for a few reasons.

They want to save them because our shoes are the best pair they have ever owned.

They are afraid to get their new ones dirty.

The most common reason is that they want to show their mom first. They want her to see the new shoes in the box, to share in the happiness.

But, just when we think we have heard it all, we hear a new reason. This little boy did not want to wear his new shoes because his birthday was coming up. He said he would not be getting any presents this year because "they were having a hard time". His plan was to save his new shoes so they could be his present.

We gave him a second pair to save for his birthday and lots and lots of socks.

Our schedule is set for next year, with an incredibly long waiting list of schools pleading to be added.

Our team is working hard to make a deeper footprint to the kids who need us. Thank you to all who volunteer time and dollars.

What we all do together matters more than you can imagine.

Stay with us, please, as we continue to meet one of the biggest, unmet health-care needs for kids in hard times.

06/04/2026

Volunteers are often surprised at the gratitude shown by the kids we serve.

Unless you know better, it is easy to jump on board with the "groupthink" based on stereotyping of children in poverty, which says they only are only happy with the big brand- name shoes.

We know better. Years of experience and over 250,000 children have shown us what is true.

We worked yesterday with a group of children suffering from every kind of lack and social brokenness you can name. They are often hungry, and lack basics such as toys, clothes, safety, etc.

This is a picture of a volunteer holding a broken piece of some kind of crystal that a little boy gave her as a thank-you for his shoes/socks. He would NOT take it back.

He also offered to share his lunch with her.

We absolutely love the children we serve.

By the way, expressing true gratitude rewires the part of your brain that controls empathy. This little boy grew in empathy yesterday. So did you, just by reading this.

Stay with us. It is good for you to see what we see.

If you have ever volunteered with us, please do us a favor and fill out our volunteer survey. We are always trying to improve our processes and could use your help.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeJID03l4LwzWAH8ATx0-aOHRimY70T3ZvGOsm9hcy3HK6lDg/viewform?usp=publish-editor

06/01/2026

Even in the neediest of groups, not every child needs new shoes. We have spent years analyzing this data and designing the best possible way to serve. The feelings of all the children matter to us.

Being a good steward of our resources matters as well.

Our primary goal in any group is to serve 100% of the children in need. We leave no child out, ever. We are especially careful to not leave out siblings. We are so committed to this that we even have a process for children who are absent on the day we come. They get their shoes/socks too.

We are often asked how the children who do not need shoes respond to those who do. Most of the time, the children who do not need them are aware they don't. They are also aware of their peers who do, and react beautifully.

This picture is a great example.

This group of boys was participating in a summer camp made up of children who needed absolutely nothing and children who needed everything.

One boy in their group needed shoes/socks. The shoes he was wearing did not fit and were falling apart. He did not own socks. He came from a far different environment than the rest.

While we helped him, his group stayed a few feet back quietly watching. When he was done, he ran to his new friends, who spontaneously and quietly gathered around him in a group hug.

Love looks like this.

Stay with us, please. It is good for you to see what we see.

Goodness and mercy follow us.

05/27/2026

When we began in 2010, we had no idea of the incredible, hard-to-explain events that would come our way.

They began almost immediately.

We had no inventory at that time and relied on our partners to provide the shoe sizes children needed. We would raise the funds, buy the shoes, and deliver them to the kids.

We always made sure they fit just like we wanted our own children's shoes to fit. When they didn't, we replaced them the next day.

One of our first deliveries was to a small group of children in an after-school program, with a group of students from the University of Dayton.

The children we were serving lived in the deepest of poverty, surrounded by almost every social evil imaginable. We were advised not to touch the children because most had suffered every type of abuse and were suspicious of adults.

The shoes were a great fit for all of the kids, but one.

He was a young boy who waited until all the other children were helped before approaching us. He was very overweight, wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt several sizes too large. It was at least 85 degrees outside. He did not make eye contact or speak. He smelled so badly that the other children would not come near him.

His story was that he was a bed-wetter. His parents made him wear the wet pants every day until they dried. He slept on a floor filled with straw on a floor over a dilapidated garage. Children's Services had been involved many times. The staff of the after-school program sent clean clothes home often. Nothing ever changed.

His feet were extremely wide, and he had not been measured correctly. The shoes we had for him did not fit.

He walked away from us, dropped to the floor, put his head in his hands, and silently sobbed.

I sat next to him, gathered him into my arms, and promised we would try again. I honestly had no idea how we would solve this. We had not yet learned how to special-order for hard-to-fit feet. All I knew was we would try. I promised we would come back.

I knew he did not believe this. I suspected he did not even believe we had no more for him to try at the moment. Why would he believe us?

So, I sent one of the UD students back to my personal truck to check for more. I KNEW there were none. We had carried into the building the exact number we loaded in my truck. There was no hidden space, no place a box could have fallen, but I wanted the young boy to see we would try and would care enough to come back and try again.

He and I watched the UD student walk out to my truck.

We watched him walk back in carrying a box we had never seen that contained a shoe brand we had never purchased.

It was just the right size and width. The shoes were perfect.

There are no words to describe the emotion in that room. We all knew what had happened.

Since then, miracles like this have shown up over and over. We are confident they always will.

Stay with us, please. It is good for you to be a part of this beautiful journey we call S4TS.

Goodness and mercy follow us.

05/21/2026

Danny Downs here, everyone. I am the newest staff member at S4TS. They affectionately call me "the kid".

I joined the team in October to help with inventory management, data collection, warehouse management, truck packing, and driving.

Best of all, I work alongside our incredible team on all deliveries, bringing relief to thousands of local children.

If you saw our post from yesterday morning, you saw our commitment to never leaving out siblings. Yesterday afternoon, I was privileged to put that commitment into action.

Emergency deliveries to individual children in our partner schools are part of my job.

Yesterday, an urgent request came in for a homeless child in desperate need of shoes. She needed them NOW if possible.

She had been in our partner school for several weeks. Yesterday, a staff member noticed the cheap, plastic shoes she had been wearing were so small that the plastic was cutting into her feet. She was miserable.

She hugged the new shoes/socks I gave her.

While there, our school partner realized she had a younger sister and called her to the office.

She was not wearing shoes, just men's socks so large for her that they covered her knees.

SHE DID NOT OWN SHOES.

I wish you could have seen the absolute joy, relief, and gratitude on these sisters' faces. It took my breath away.

The little sister had a cast on her arm. Before she went back to class, she asked me if I would sign it. I am a tough guy, but I had to fight back tears.

Serving is a privilege.

Stay with us, please.

05/20/2026

We have an excellent process for identifying which children in a school need shoes/socks.

One of our goals is to never leave out siblings.

It would be crushing for one sibling to receive brand-new shoes/socks while leaving out brothers and sisters who also need them.

This takes thoughtful, detail-oriented collaboration with our partners, but it is worth it.

This is a picture of 3 siblings. The older brother refused to be helped with his shoes until his younger siblings were helped first.

He did not trust that we would have enough shoes for them. He was also not quite sure he could trust us not to overlook them.

So, he refused help unless he saw them being helped first. His shoes were trash-worth by the way, and painfully small.

We arranged to have his siblings brought down while he waited. He helped us help them.

Then, he took help for himself.

We snapped this picture as they all left the gym together.

We love the kids we serve.

Stay with us, please.

05/18/2026

With the need before us and a sense of urgency to help, in 2010, we researched the country and looked for another organization doing what we intended to do. We knew there were no other organizations in our region, but we assumed there were others in the country.

We wanted to duplicate their success rather than reinvent the wheel.

With the University of Dayton's help, we conducted a national search, identified a few promising organizations, and learned their processes.

Our first-ever school-based delivery, based on our findings, was a complete failure. None of the shoes fit the way we want our own children's shoes to fit.

Our goal was never about numbers; it was about helping. We do not help if the shoes do not fit. We do not help if the quality is not great. We do not help if we do not include socks.

So, we invented the wheel, setting the national standard along the way.

Our process is labor-intensive, and we have a large budget. We require over 700 community volunteers each month, during the workday.

All worth it.

Our process includes follow-up. We special-order shoes for children with hard-to-fit feet or adaptive needs.

Additionally, we help children as many times as necessary during the year. Many children will not have the shoes we give them on our big day at school for long. They will be stolen, sold by an adult, ruined, or outgrown.

When, like our team and army of volunteers, you see these children eye to eye and step into their suffering for a few minutes, you will go the extra mile a million times over to help.

We replaced this little boy's shoes many times. Fleeing an abusive father, his family changed locations often, usually in the middle of the night, leaving everything behind. Sometimes they were evicted.

Because we maintain great relationships with our partners, have an incredible army of supporters, and an outstanding professional team, we can keep helping children like him.

As many times as it takes.

In 2010, an organization like ours did not exist in our area, state, or country.

In 2026, we are the standard to follow.

We have set a lofty goal to add 1,000 more children to our already over-packed schedule.

Stay with us, please. Helping is a privilege.

05/14/2026

Years ago, when we were just starting out, we did not have a pair of shoes that fit a little boy.

Looking at his appearance, he was a child living in deep, deep need. His basic needs for cleanliness and decent clothes were not being met. His teeth were black with decay.

He did not speak or make eye contact. His shoes were trash-worthy and way too small. He did not have socks. When the shoes we had on hand for him did not fit, he did not react at all.

I told him we would be back tomorrow with more for him to try. Again, no reaction. He just walked back to class.

I went back the next afternoon with shoes and socks that were a perfect fit. That is when he spoke to me for the first time, and it was not about the shoes/socks.

He said in a voice barely above a whisper, "They said you would not come back. I said you would." He walked back to class.

Fifteen years later, I remember that interaction like it was yesterday. It drove home to me the reason S4TS exists.

Love.

It is all about love, in the form of a simple pair of gym shoes and socks.

Since then, we have reached over 250,000 area children, including 21,000 so far, this year alone, and we have just scratched the surface of the kids who need us. Our waiting list is long.

Our team will spend the next several weeks planning how to maintain the 21,000 and add 1,000 more.

We are confident that God, who originated our mission, will work things out for the children He loves.

If you would like to be part of solving one of the biggest, unmet health-care needs for kids living in poverty, follow the links below!

https://shoes4theshoeless.org/give/

https://shoes4theshoeless.org/get-involved/

Stay with us, please.

05/08/2026

We would like thank our friends at Shoes for the Shoeless for providing new shoes to students in PK-6 grade. Students were also able to select new books from our friends at Cincinnati Public Library. Cincinnati Public Schools

05/07/2026