First Day Shoe Fund provides brand-new athletic shoes to Kalamazoo County K-5th grade elementary students, helping them start school with confidence, comfort, and dignity. Valerie Denghel, a volunteer tutor in Kalamazoo Public Schools, founded First Day Shoe Fund. After noticing her students wearing shoes that were worn, torn, or the wrong size, with some students missing school due to lack of footwear, she began buying new shoes for them. In 2005, with a seed grant from Bread for the Journey and working through Communities in Schools (CIS) of Kalamazoo, she bought and distributed 160 pairs of shoes for low-income students attending KPS summer school, donating extras to two elementary schools. In 2006, she worked with OnePlace to establish FDSF as an independent 501(c)(3) organization, assembled a board of directors and forged relationships to create an effective, sustainable organization.
