Intermountain sponsored an event last month with the Goodie Two Shoes Foundation (GTSF) to distribute new shoes, socks, and dental kits to 432 students at Richard Rundle Elementary School in Las Vegas, Nevada. About 50 Intermountain caregivers volunteered at the event to help children find the right sized shoes, all the while making one-on-one connections with young community members they might otherwise never have met.
The Goodie Two Shoes Foundation, bearing the motto, “Building a better Foundation one foot at a time,” is a local 501(c)3 charitable organization which outfits about 10,000 children a year at Title One schools—those with high populations of children with low-income families—in the Clark County School District. Many of these students have never had a new pair of shoes or socks.
The children aren’t only provided with quality athletic footwear, via a colorful 48’ trailer turned pop-up shoe store. They’re also empowered with the choice of whichever pair they want, unconstrained by financial limitations. Many kids are surprised to learn they get to pick their own shoes. As Tony Berti, co-founder and director of operations, clearly recalls, one of their first participants a decade ago—a little girl around 5 or 6 years old in a shirt seven sizes too big—declared the day she received her new shoes “the best day of her life.”
GTSF co-founder and CEO Nikki Berti hopes this opportunity to see what a positive choice feels like can translate into good choices in the children’s lives in general.
“That very first child steps up with that big smile, and it’s just a pair of shoes, but that pair of shoes means so much more,” Nikki says.
“This event was an awesome opportunity that our group of 50 volunteers thoroughly enjoyed,” says Sloan Albert, vice president of operations for Intermountain in Nevada. “We’re thrilled to be participating and supporting such a fantastic organization like Goodie Two Shoes.”
GTSF holds 25 distribution events annually, each serving close to 400 Nevada kids. Find out about partnering, volunteering, and more at goodietwoshoes.org.