Our story
We believe a lack of sports shoes shouldn’t be an impediment to children and adults taking part in sport. Especially as sport can help people build confidence, self esteem and lead healthy lives. The preloved sports shoes we collect have helped primary school children take part in PE lessons, where previously they had been excluded because they didn’t have the correct trainers. They have helped senior school students excel in athletics track events because the spikes we have given them means they can compete to the best of their ability without losing valuable seconds. The sports shoes have enabled refugees, who had previously been playing football in bare feet or flip flops, take part in football coaching session without damaging their feet. And they have helped countless families whose children’s feet are constantly growing, access the next size up of football boots, running shoes, astro boots or athletics spikes, when family finances are unable to cover this added expense.
An 2013 MIT study found that a typical pair of running shoes generates 14 kg of carbon emissions. Since we started, we have redistributed 4,241 pairs of sports shoes. That’s equivalent to 59.374 tonnes of CO2 emissions saved. The Good Childhood Report 2022 found that 27% of parents and carers cannot afford PE kit for their children. At one school we work with, the PE teacher said he had students who would rather take a detention for ‘forgetting’ their football boots, than admit that their family couldn’t afford a pair for them. So redistributing preloved sports shoes helps both the environment and helps people that are struggling to afford the correct footwear.
We work with schools, sports groups, activity clubs for children on Free School Meals, refugee groups and homeless charities to redistribute preloved sports shoes. We have permanent recycling bins in local sports centres and sports clubs. We also have businesses and sports clubs that hold one off Shoe Drives to collect sports shoes from their staff and members.
Our advice
We started collecting sports shoes after lockdown, when we discovered lots of families had expensive football boots they had bought for their children. Their children had hardly worn them because club and school football matches had ceased during lockdown. By the time restrictions were lifted, their children’s feet had grown out of them. We contacted schools and found they had students in need of football boots as lockdown had affected family finances. We widened our reach by contacting youth groups and sports organisations running activities for children on Free School Meals. The more people heard about us, the more groups got in touch with us.
We’ve found that runners change their running shoes regularly but don’t like to throw their old running shoes away! Running clubs are therefore a great place to hold Shoe Drives. We have found the greatest need is for football boots. Quite a few schools have new 3G pitches that they hold their PE lessons on and students must wear moulded studs. They are not allowed trainers or astro boots. The means many families struggle to afford an extra pair of sports shoes on top of the school uniform they are buying for their children.
We’ve found that the best places to collect sports shoes are from sport related venues and organisations, otherwise you tend to end up with all types of shoes - school shoes, flip flops, wellies and winter boots!
Although we don’t have any big outgoing costs, the work is quite time consuming - picking up the shoes from all our permanent shoe bins on a weekly basis, sorting the shoes, getting the shoes cleaned, putting the shoes in size order in the storage so we can then access them easily as and when groups need them, and then redistributing them to all the different groups we work with. And of course all the social media content to let everyone know what we are doing so we can help more people. We have built up a group of volunteer shoe cleaners, who meet once a month to clean the sports shoes. We secured National Lottery funding and funding from Hertfordshire Community Foundation so we could employ a Charity Manager to organise everything. We also hold fundraising events and apply for local community donations.
Our metrics
We measure the amount of sports shoes we give out - 4,241 pairs to date. We measure the amount of CO2 emissions saved - 59.374 tonnes. We measure the amount of money we’ve saved families - £106,025, based on an average cost of £25 per pair of sports shoes. And we look to engage with new organisations, schools and school holiday camps to ensure we are getting to the people that need help the most.
