Costco members doing
their part to help make the
world a better place
C hanging the world ©
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Happy feet
NAMPA, IDAHO, NATIVE Kenton Lee
wasn’t exactly looking for a mission. But he
wanted to witness the world that up until then
he had only seen on TV, encountered online
or read about. Six months of living and working in Quito, Ecuador, and another six in
Nairobi, Kenya, changed his life.
In Nairobi, Lee lived and worked at a
small orphanage with about 140 children of
different ages, whose parents had died from
HIV/AIDS. One day, while walking to church,
Lee looked down at a little girl in a white dress
and noticed her feet.
“I was blown away by how small her
shoes were,” he recalls. “She had to cut open
the front to let her toes stick out. And in my
American mind, I remember thinking, ‘Why
is she wearing this pair of shoes? Why doesn’t
she put on a different pair?’ But, of course, she
didn’t have another.”
Lee noticed many other children were
wearing shoes that didn’t fit. He asked himself,
“Wouldn’t it be great if there were a shoe that
could adjust and expand so that kids always
had a pair of shoes that fit?” But none existed.
In 2009, along with friends and Costco
members Andrew Kroes, Nathan Roskam
and Tobin Rogers, Lee formed a nonprofit,
Because International, and, with no shoe-designing experience, began building a prototype. The Shoe That Grows (theshoethatgrows.
org) became their first philanthropic project.
A cross between a sandal and a running
shoe, The Shoe That Grows expands in the
front, the sides and the back.
“In the summer of 2012, my new wife
[Nikki] and I took 100 pairs of the prototype
shoes back to Kenya and put them in four
different schools around the country,”
he says. Feedback from children
and parents helped them
decide to produce the
shoe in two sizes
and three colors.
Thanks to atten-
Above, Andrew Kroes (left) and Kenton
Lee with children from Haiti after delivering 300 pairs of shoes. At right, school
director St. Claire Destine adjusts a shoe
for a Haitian student.
In our digital editions
Click here for details on The Shoe
That Grows from Kenton Lee. (See
page 14 for details.)
tion from news organizations and social media,
they expect to have around 20,000 pairs of shoes
distributed in 25 different countries by this
month, and they are currently working
on new versions: one that will cover
more of the foot for areas where
small insects tend to latch onto
children’s feet, and another for
cold climates.
“I never saw this coming,” Lee says. “I just
wanted to make a pair of
shoes for those kids at the
orphanage.”
—Steve Fisher
ONE NIGH T IN June 2008, Felecia Bernstein
noticed an injured cat in the middle of the
road. “I saw that all the cars were going
around it as it was struggling to get out of the
road,” recalls the New Jersey Costco member.
Bernstein took the cat to the nearest vet,
who asked the feline’s name. “I didn’t know
her name,” she says. “But the girl was wearing
pink scrubs, like a rose color. So I said, ‘Call
her Rose.’ ”
She was told Rose had a broken leg and
they wanted to observe her overnight. The cost
would be $500. Bernstein hesitated. “I thought,
‘If somebody else was holding my cat at that
moment, would I want them to hesitate?’ ”
Bernstein paid the bill. Rose died that
evening, but Bernstein wasn’t sorry she paid:
“I thought, ‘At least she died in a hospital, not
being hit 100 times over on the street.’ ”
She didn’t want anyone else to experience
that moment of hesitation in helping a sick or
injured animal. In September 2008, Bernstein
filed the paperwork to get a 501(c) 3 status
and created Rose’s Fund ( rosesfund.org). All
donations to the fund go to people who need
help for their pets or animals they find.
“No money [for salaries or supplies] comes
out of the fund,” she says. “I don’t take out
money for stamps. Everything is donated by
myself or others.” Those who have been helped
often donate in kind through small monthly
increments or by making and donating products—such as dog bandanas—that can be sold
by Rose’s Fund at community events.
“In seven years we’ve helped over 500
families all across the United States,” Bernstein
reports. “There are no salaries. Everything we
sell is either donated or made by a volunteer.
And most of those are people we’ve helped.”
Bernstein hopes word of Rose’s Fund will
spread, saying, “I hate when I hear someone
ends up euthanizing their pet and they say,
‘Oh, I wish I had known about you.’ ”—SF
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shoes back to Kenya and put them in four
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Felecia Bernstein, who founded Rose’s
Fund, with Juicy, a rescue dog.
In memory of Rose
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