When one of her student’s pair of shoes completely fell apart, kindergarten teacher assistant Bethany Martin had an idea. “His shoe ripped completely in half and his whole foot was sticking out and I had the idea of how cool it would be if I could get some friends and family help out to supply all 85 kindergarteners with new shoes for Christmas.”

So before the holiday season began approaching, Bethany put a plan into action. She started by asking for help on social media, and after the local media picked up the story, she had more than enough for the new shoes. So much so that she began expanding her idea to getting shoes for the entire school.

Bethany explained, “After a national morning radio show picked the story up, they interviewed me and within 30 minutes of talking with them, we had enough to buy 1,300 pairs of shoes.” That’s enough shoes to supply each student at Sequoyah with a pair and reach out to other schools with the remainder.

The shoes were supplied with the help of Metro Shoe Warehouse of Tulsa. “They are a pretty high-end shoe store,” Bethany said. “But they have a non-profit that packaged all the shoes with the class, teachers name, and even the student’s name in each box. They were great.”