Lincoln Center students gifted shoes for the summer

POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI) - At the Lincoln Early Childhood Center on Friday, it was a great day to be a kid.

Students at the school got to pick out their own brand new shoes, with the help of United Way of Southeastern Idaho.

"Helping these kids be able to have maybe even their first pair of shoes, brand new pair of shoes and the excitement of some of the kids having just a clean pair of shoes has just been so heartwarming," said United Way Director of Donor and Community Engagement Wendi Ames.

United Way and the Lincoln Center reached out to us to spread the word about the fundraiser, and after our story aired, they were able to raise $4,500 and purchase 180 pairs of shoes.

"We had raised about half the amount of shoes we needed through our Women United event and then after the news story, we were actually just overwhelmed with the amount of community support we had with money and more shoes coming in," Ames said."

"I was so excited about how much our community stepped up to help these kids," said Lincoln Center Family Service Manager Karlia Lopez. "They don't even know that there were children in our community who were in need and they were willing to donate shoes, money, whatever we needed to be able to make sure that we had what we needed for the kids."

Lopez says it was special to see their reactions when they received them. 

"It felt so good to see their smiles," Lopez said. "They were so excited to just have a new pair of shoes and be able to choose those shoes, and their eyes just lit up."

Lopez wants the community to know how important this day was.

"One of our kids even said, this is the best day of my life," Lopez said. "These kids really need this. They just need to know that there's adults out there who really care about them, that they have families who love them so much and just want to do more for them than they're able to. So just being able to provide that for our kids is amazing."