It was as if all the stars aligned last week when Hav A Sole and Joey Brezinski, a local street skateboarder, collaborated on an event. Joey’s idea was fairly simple. He wanted to donate new shoes from his own shoe company, but he wanted Hav A Sole to facilitate it while our friends at Uninterrupted Productions would film it. Easy enough, seeing how Hav A Sole has done hundreds of events giving away shoes.
So, on April 4th Rikki and his partner, Dash, brought Joey’s donated shoes to SPY, otherwise known as Safe Place for Youth, an organization that helps kids living on the streets in Venice.
Rikki and Dash set up the boxes of shoes in the courtyard. When everything was good to go, the kids stood around and when Joey walked in, he was greeted with a burst of applause. Joey and Rikki, talked to the kids beforehand telling them a bit of their own inspiring stories.
Another big surprise was when Kristen Ludlow, an anchor from NBA TV dropped in to help us out. While Kristen has been a Hav A Sole fan for years, she is stationed in Atlanta, so this was the first time she was actually able to participate in one of our events. All the volunteers, including Kristen, worked together making sure each of the youth got a new pair of kicks.
By the end of the day, Hav A Sole was excited to have reached a huge Milestone. In just 5 years Hav A Sole has given away over 15,000 pairs of shoes to the homeless and at-risk youth. And that’s something we are truly grateful for.