Girl Scouts’ efforts honored by Nike

By Ed Runyan

The troop turned over 875 athletic shoes to Nike Grind.

AUSTINTOWN — The results of the athletic shoe collection project carried out by members of Austintown Girl Scout Troop 363 in the spring have been better than the girls ever expected.

Not only did the dozen girls achieve their goal of earning a Girl Scout Bronze Award — the highest award in Junior Girl Scouts — but recently, Nike surprised them with delivery of thousands of dollars worth of Nike sports equipment sent to their schools.

Jennifer Hykes, co-leader of the troop, said a Nike spokesman told her recently the company wanted to thank the troop for its efforts to recycle sports shoes and would be sending sports equipment to the girls’ schools.

But the amount of free equipment and its timing were a surprise.

“It was like Christmas,” Hykes said.

Austintown Middle School, Frank Ohl Intermediate School and St. Joseph Elementary School in the Catholic Diocese each received around 10 boxes full of sports balls — around 80 balls for each school — on May 13.

Figuring the value of each basketball, volleyball, soccer ball and football to be around $20, Hykes estimates each school received around $1,600 worth of balls. Austintown Middle School will use the balls for gym class, while Frank Ohl and St. Joseph’s will use them for gym classes and recess.

“They were just overwhelmed,” Hykes said of the girls’ response when they learned of Nike’s gift.

The girls were “just doing it as a project and for the environment,” Hykes said of recycling items that would normally go into a landfill.

They didn’t expect to be rewarded for their work beyond the Bronze Award. Hykes said the girls’ work qualified for the Bronze Award because they each spent 30 to 35 hours on the project.

The troop, which consists of Austintown girls in fifth and sixth grade, collected athletic shoes in the area in the spring, including in some of the Austintown school buildings. They sorted the shoes, and the troop had the 875 qualifying shoes driven to the Nike Outlet store in Aurora. Nike then forwarded the shoes to its Nike Grind facility in Oregon.

There, Nike separates the shoes into three parts — rubber, foam and fabric upper — and grinds them up into materials that can be reused in the production of sports surfaces such as basketball and tennis courts, running tracks, soccer fields, fitness flooring and playground safety surfacing.

The fabric and foam grindings are also used as padding under hardwood surfaces and as part of the material used to make other types of synthetic athletic surfaces.

Daniel Bokesch, principal at Austintown Middle School, said when one of his gym teachers saw the quantity and quality of the new items, “her eyes popped out.”

Volleyballs, especially, were in short supply at the time. And the financially strapped district would not be able to afford the high-end types of balls that Nike sent, he added. Among the items were LeBron James basketballs with a price tag of around $30, Bokesch said.

The principal made an announcement in school on Friday, congratulating the girls on the project and thanking them and all of the pupils who contributed their old shoes.

Certain shoes that were collected — baseball and soccer shoes with metal or plastic cleats on them — are not usable by Nike Grind and were instead donated in the area, Hykes said.

runyan@vindy.com