Monday morning around 9 a.m., students at Flomaton Elementary School began receiving a free pair of brand new shoes thanks to a partnership between Abundant Life Church in Century and Convoy of Hope Rural Compassion and the school administration.
In February, church pastor Joey Johnson met with Principal George Brown to discuss the need for the program and had the school provide shoe sizes of students in each class. Teachers were given measure charts and agreed to undertake the task of getting each student's shoe size for the last three months. Each girl and boy was given a pair of Toms slip-on canvas-style shoes.
Members of Abundant Life and school staff assisted with handing out more than 400 pairs of shoes to each student in the courtyard.
“Every student gets a pair,” said Johnson. “We bring a size chart and every teacher will measure for every student and we get the order. It's an amazing program that they have. We are going to try to hit every school that we can.”
Johnson said the church gave shoes to students at Byrneville Elementary last fall, and hope to do a shoe give-away each spring and fall.
“It is a good opportunity to bless those that are less fortunate, or in need,” he said. “That's what the church is here for, to bless the community. It has been phenomenal, and I am going to continue to do it as long as I am able to. This is just our heart, we love doing this stuff.”
There are qualifications that have to be met for a school to qualify for the program, such as there is more than 50 percent reduced lunches. Johnson said that once they determine that a school qualifies, they begin the process of getting student shoe sizes and planning. He said that any grade level that meets the criteria is eligible.
“We would love to do a high school, since we've only done elementary schools so far,” said Johnson. “We can only do one per semester, so next semester, we will look around and see where the biggest need in our reach and we will be doing this again in the fall.”
