SAN ANTONIO – Every year KSAT Community partners with the San Antonio Police Department and the local nonprofit Zapatos to help collect shoes for kids in our community.
We are now entering the final days of the Share the Shoes drive and some San Antonio police cadets were able to raise a good amount of money to help the cause.
The shoe carnival in the 2000 block of SW Military was filled with members of SAPD this morning. The store offered 30% off for the program.
SAPD cadet Cora Mainz and her class were able to raise more than $1500 dollars to help buy new shoes for kids.
“So every single instructor that we had started by asking us why do you want to be here and every single person that answered said because I wanna better San Antonio, I wanna help the community that I live in, I want to make this place better; and this is a little thing that we can do right now before we’ve graduated,” Mainz said.
Last year the program collected 1,200 shoes, but this year there have already been around 1,800 pairs collected, a true testament to the people of the Alamo City.
“They are very giving and the ones who give the most are the ones that have less; it tells me that they themselves walked in these shoes and that they are doing it with their heart; because you know they want to help the kids and this is strictly for the kids,” Gloria Martínez, president of Zapatos said.
During the pandemic the program is making a big difference for local families.
“It’s really helped them because it took away that burden from the parents, they were barely making it themselves,” Martínez said.
If you want to donate, Zapatos says smaller children have bigger needs.
“Toddler shoes at five, six, half sizes because we give shoes to kids that are of pre-K to 4; some of our kids are three-years-old,” Martínez said.
And no shoe will get left behind.
“Shoes... we really can’t use high heels of our boots and things like that, so we hand them to the battered women shelter so everybody benefits,” Martínez said.
As for the cadet, she joined the rest of the SAPD members this morning to pick out shoes to donate.