For Underprivileged Kids, Man Invents A Shoe That Grows Five Sizes

Kenton Lee has created a shoe, made of compressed rubber, leather, buckles and straps, that grows with a child and lasts nearly five years.

After graduating from Northwest Nazarene University in 2007, Lee traveled to Kenya and spent five months at a Nairobi orphanage with 140 children; their parents had all died of AIDS. He saw that while some of the children had cut the front of their small shoes to let their toes stick out, the majority of them did not have shoes. Desperate to find a solution for their plight, an idea struck Lee.

He founded Because International, a non-profit organization, in 2009 and after seven years of research and development, created two adjustable shoes – one small and one large size. The small size was intended to fit kids from pre-school to grade five and the large size was meant for grade five to grade nine kids. So with just two pairs of shoes that are able to grow with the individual, the poor, underprivileged kids could spend their childhood comfortably and protect themselves from soil-transmitted parasites and diseases. (NOTE: Samaritan’s Feet, an organization that works to distribute shoes around the world, states that two billion people worldwide are plagued with parasitic diseases that could be prevented by wearing proper footwear.)

“I’m not a ‘shoe guy.’ I didn’t know what I was doing. So, finally we found an organization in Portland, some old Adidas guys who started their own company, and they help people take an idea to a prototype for shoes,” Lee said.

In 2013, Lee took that prototype back to Kenya. About 100 kids tested out The Shoe That Grows:

“The kids just loved them. For them to have a pair of shoes, for us to show them how they work, for us to help put them on their feet…they were thrilled to have a pair of shoes that fit. I am so excited for the continued smiles and good feelings that the kids can have where they can know they don’t have to worry about having shoes that don’t fit anymore,” he added.

“For a long time, it was just an idea, just kind of a harebrained idea. I never really thought anything would come of it. Just step by step, through a lot of failing, too, we finally made it,” he exclaimed.

Each pair costs $10. The shoes are made at a factory in China. TheShoeThatGrows.org is a one-stop shop where people buy shoes in packages of 1, 5, 10, 25, 50 or 100. An order of 25 shoes comes in a duffel bag with 25 drawstring backpacks to package each shoe. People also pay $10 for a pair of shoes that goes to five partner organizations around the world. Once a bag of 50 pairs is filled up, the shoes are sent.

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