About 300 students had the chance to pick and choose a pair of brand-new shoes of their liking and style on Thursday. <\/p>\n
The event happened at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale.<\/p>\n
Jasiyah Fain, a 5th grader, received help from volunteer Celeste to make sure the fit was just right, and she found the perfect pair.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I saw this one, I was like yeah I like these, nice shoes,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cTheir confidence starts with their appearance,\u201d said Celeste. \u201cThey are going to feel better coming to school.\u201d<\/p>\n
These new shoes for every student are a reality thanks to Rick Case Automotive Group<\/a> and Soles4Souls<\/a>, a nonprofit that provides shoes to kids in need.<\/p>\n \u201cThey feel more equal to their peers, and they are more excited about going to school,\u201d said Rita Case with Rick Case Automotive. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen we are sizing kids for an event like this, the child will be in a (size) one, but they really need a (size) three or four, so if families are stretched to make ends meet, things like shoes are not a necessity,\u201d added Soles4Souls VP of Outreach Tiffany Turner. <\/p>\n The goal is to make shoes one less worry for families and remove a barrier that could keep students from showing up to school.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you feel good, you do well, you feel confident about learning,\u201d said Thurgood Marshall Principal Angeline Flowers. <\/p>\n On Thursday, many students put their old shoes in a bag to take home, stepping proudly into new ones. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m actually wearing them right now, because it matches my outfit,\u201d said student Ezequiel Pennington. <\/p>\n \u201cI just saw them and I really liked them cause they match almost everything in my closet,\u201d said student Lenny Serran. <\/p>\n \ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About 300 students had the chance to pick and choose a pair of brand-new shoes of their liking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-216312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}