Friday, December 14, 2018
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Neighbors | Jessica Harker.Zachary May was one of 28 students who received a new pair of boots through Making Kids Count at Austintown Elementary School on Dec. 3.
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Neighbors | Jessica Harker.Kenneth Miller was one of 650 students locally to receive a new pair of boots from Making Kids Count on Dec. 3 at AES.
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Neighbors | Jessica Harker.Daniel Kern tried on his new boots from Making Kids Count Dec. 3 at Austintown Elementary School.
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Neighbors | Jessica Harker.AES Counselors and Making Kids Count representatives handed out 28 pairs of boots to Austintown students Dec. 3.
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Neighbors | Jessica Harker.Zachary May, a student at Austintown Elementary School, received a new pair of boots on Dec. 3.
By JESSICA HARKER
Making Kids Count visited Austintown Elementary School to deliver free boots to 28 students.
Jana Coffin and Colleen Eisenbraun, co-presidents of Making Kids Count, delivered the boots to students on Dec. 3.
“It’s called the best foot forward boot program,” Coffin said. “We go to all these schools in Mahoning and Trumball county. Schools where anyone who has over 45 percent free and reduced lunch are selected.”
The program has been active for three years, Coffin said, and was started with the help of Mike Iberis from the Italian Scholarship Fund and Second Harvest Food Bank.
“He came to us and said that their plans were to clothe and feed and shelter and we talked about boots because we don’t think anyone does boots in the area,” Coffin said.
That year, Iberis was able to secure the program $10,000 used to purchase boots for local students.
This year, the Italian Scholarship Foundation donated $15,000, along with $5,000 from the Ronald McDonald House and $3,000 from private donors going to purchase more than 650 pairs of boots.
New this year students in Youngstown Schools will also be receiving socks which were purchased by the Kiwanis Club of Youngstown.
“Some of the kids the first year we took off their shoes to try on the boots and they weren’t wearing socks,” Coffin said. “It was late in the year then, around January, so we knew we needed to do socks as well.”
The need of individual schools is determined by what percentage of students receive free and reduced lunch. The program then uses a rubric based on enrollment numbers to determine how many referrals each school receives for number of boots.
Coffin said that school counselors are then contacted with information about the program and they choose the students who will receive boots.
Counselors then send the names, grades and shoe sizes back to Making Kids Count, who order the shoes and then deliver them to each school.
“The first year I had no clue that the kids were going to be that excited to receive boots,” Coffin said. “I can’t even imagine, I’m still thinking about it, some of them wore them and they skipped down the hall.”
All boots are made in the United States and more than 40 schools will receive them this year.
“It’s a great program, and we are really meeting a need here that no one else is looking at,” Coffin said.