Teen’s Shoe Donation Program a Runaway Hit

At the Radnotis’ house in Thousand Oaks, the Thanksgiving table will be laden with the usual goodies, but the garage will be stuffed with the old shoes of strangers.

It’s an incongruity that makes perfect sense if you are 17-year-old Kristina Radnoti and you have founded a group that give shoes to the homeless.

So far, her drive -- Sole Purpose -- has delivered nearly 1,100 pairs of used athletic footgear to shelters in Ventura County and Los Angeles. They come from running clubs and track teams, from police officers and firefighters, from veteran marathoners and Sunday strollers. They go to poor people a world away from power walks and fun runs.

Kristina, a senior at Thousand Oaks High School, ran five miles a day until she was sidelined by surgery.

Now she is a pole vaulter on the school’s track team. Her father, chemical engineer Robert Radnoti, coaches the team, and her brother, Tom, runs for it. Her mother, Jan, is an avid jogger and met her husband at a track meet.

So it’s not surprising that Kristina would see something of value where other people might see only tired sneakers moldering in a closet.

Making a pickup at the East County Sheriff’s Station in Thousand Oaks one recent afternoon, Kristina opened a Santa-sized sack and out clattered a cornucopia of Nikes, Adidases and New Balances.

“Practically new!” she said, admiring a spotless pair of gel-cushioned, yellow-trimmed, extra-wide cross trainers.

The booty was bound for her garage. Shoes that are too far gone will be thrown away. The others will accumulate in the garage along with piles collected by a few pals in what Kristina calls her “shoe crew.”

When they reach a critical mass as gauged by Kristina’s mother, they will be taken to the shelters.

“Last week we had 181 pairs of shoes out there,” Jan Radnoti said as she cooked dinner for the Thousand Oaks High School girls cross-country team one recent evening. “I’d reached my limit.”

In Camarillo, that meant a windfall for some of the homeless families living at the shelter run by the Ventura County program called RAIN, or River-dwellers Intercity Aid Network.

“There’s an enormous number of kids and adults in need of simple things like shoes,” said Diana Vogelbaum, the shelter’s director. “They’re on their feet all the time. When they sleep out in the open, they’re nervous about taking their shoes off because someone might steal them.”

When Kristina and her friends made a delivery to the shelter a few months ago, a couple of children couldn’t find anything that fit. The students helped them out with a quick trip to a discount shoe store.

Sole Purpose started in February. Kristina and her mother were touched by a news show on poverty in Afghanistan. About the same time, Kristina was casting around for a community-service project to list on college applications.

“We started brainstorming,” Kristina said. “We wanted to deliver shoes to the Afghans but didn’t know how to get them there.”

Thinking locally was at first just as frustrating. Going door to door for old shoes was a bust. Asking to place an empty box and a sign at a big sporting-goods store meant trying to navigate corporate bureaucracies.

But it turned out that neighbors holding garage sales couldn’t wait to give away shoes by the bagful. And a local running store -- Future Track in Agoura Hills -- eagerly assisted, setting up a box for the also-ran shoes of serious runners.

Kristina set up a table at local races. She printed fliers. She set up a Web site -- www.solepurpose.com. She caught the eye of Sheila Cox, a Sheriff’s Department management assistant who collects footgear for the cause both at work and in her condo complex.

“People think it’s a great idea,” Cox said. “Everyone’s real happy to get rid of shoes.”

After a while, Kristina developed a zest for marketing. She offers an iron-on Sole Purpose decal to anyone who brings in a bounty of 50 pairs of shoes. With a note to Runner’s World magazine, she was awarded the publication’s monthly “Golden Shoe Award” and a blurb on her effort.

“We got over 50 e-mails from 22 states,” she said, with many respondents thinking about setting up similar programs in their communities.

It’s too soon to tell whether that will happen, or even if Sole Purpose will remain afoot after Kristina goes off to college.

Whatever the case, the effort has underscored some sad truths for Kristina and her family.

“Someone asked me if there’s still a need for more shoes,” Jan Radnoti said.

“I thought to myself: They must be living in some kind of bubble.”