Dallas non-profit holds Back 2 School Sneaker Festival for kids in need
DALLAS - A local non-profit is helping kids get ready for the school year with new shoes.
Pasos for Oak Cliff was born out of two things: education and a love for sneakers.
"Alejandra, which is my girlfriend, my co-founder, and myself, we’re huge sneakerheads. If you don't know what that means, it’s just somebody who loves shoes. We're both educators," said Jesse Acosta, co-founder of Pasos for Oak Cliff.
The non-profit is combating inequities in education.
"My first year as a teacher, I noticed that kids with worn-out shoes were just more likely to get bullied, sort of be more shy, maybe miss class a little more often," Acosta said. "And when the pandemic hit, we - Alejandra and I - we were just looking for ways to sort of help kids.
They aren’t just providing sneakers, but also scholarships and summer programs.
"We blended literacy, math, sneaker design, and this year, we added the component which is filmmaking. We took those four topics, we put it up together, and you get the sneaker engineering program," Acosta said.
About 700 to 800 people showed up to their sneaker festival on Saturday.
"We hosted, not our first back to school shoe drive, but our first Back to School Sneaker Festival," Acosta said. "And the goal was to serve 1,000 residents, and we got pretty close to the goal."
They identified kids by partnering with elementary schools who were struggling with basic needs like backpacks, school supplies, and specifically shoes.
"Usually, the way we give out the shoes is by, so my co-founder, Alejandra, and I, we select the shoes we're going to give to their kids," he explained. "Usually, we'll put them in this bag and the kids don't know what they're getting until they get that bag and they open it up."
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From the start, the co-founder said what began as a one-time project quickly grew to a full non-profit with families asking if another fundraiser for shoes would happen again.
"We wanted to give out 50 pairs of shoes with that, and within the first week, we had fundraised about $3,000 in 2020," he added.
Acosta has stepped away from teaching full-time to focus on the non-profit.
"The intent was never to become as big as we are now," Acosta said. "So we did another fundraiser and then, from there, it's just pretty much been I don't know, it's been a blessing. And it's just really, really organic and it's been a lot of community support."
The next event will be on the non-profit's birthday, with a fundraiser on August 25 at Four Corners Brewing.