My New Red Shoes

The impact of the clothing gap on school-age children is significant. Studies show that students without adequate clothing and footwear are more likely to miss school, experience bullying and experience social isolation. The emotional toll and toxic stress of poverty can impact their social and emotional well-being and physical health for years to come.

The goals of our program are to:
1. Strengthen the capacity of our agency partners to increase services to students experiencing economic hardship
2. Reduce toxic stress factors related to poverty and improve social-emotional and health outcomes for youth experiencing economic hardship.
3. Improve school attendance and participation outcomes for students benefitting from the program.
4. Improve the financial stability of families.
Beyond providing the necessities of new shoes and clothing, MNRS helps to create long-term impact by boosting the self-esteem and confidence of students whose families experience economic hardship. By supporting a positive educational experience, MNRS helps disadvantaged students to break the cycle of poverty.

My New Red Shoes provides a pair of new shoes and needed clothing to Kindergarten through 12th grade students at any time throughout the year. MNRS reaches the homeless and low-income children it serves by establishing partnerships with schools, homeless shelters, transitional housing programs, domestic shelters, case management agencies and other community-based child-serving organizations to identify the children and youth who would receive the greatest impact from its services. This partnership helps to maximize the use of community resources, assures that MNRS continues to address an unmet need, and allows its partner agencies to fill a gap in basic services they would otherwise be unable to provide.

Since 2006, My New Red Shoes has clothed more than 90,000 students, filling a critical, unmet need. We do this with the support of a dynamic team, an engaged Board of Directors and an active and enthusiastic volunteer corps composed of families, individuals, community groups and corporate teams.

MNRS strives to continually strengthen its impact in high-need communities by deepening its relationships with current and new partner agencies and by increasing the capacity of the community’s resources to improve or expand its services to poor and homeless children. As it continues to strengthen its community-based partnerships, it has solicited and received valuable input from agency partners, gift recipients and their families regarding ways to continue to make its program more impactful and meaningful. This input is central to ensuring the organization is inclusive of the children and families it serves, and most importantly, for ensuring its programs are community-driven.

MNRS believes that the greatest impact it can ultimately provide is to empower the communities it serves by giving them the framework to identify community-centric solutions tailored to their specific needs--and then responding to those needs.

Since our founding in 2006, My New Red Shoes has provided new shoes and clothing to more than 90,000 students. In late 2019, the MNRS Board launched a new human centered strategic planning process with the goal of increasing the organization’s capacity and effectiveness in responding to the widening poverty gap and the growing struggle low-income families face to provide for their children's basic needs. Through this process, it is also exploring new partnerships and developing new pilot initiatives that would put new financial payment products into the hands of the families we serve and provide them with supports, information, and mentoring to help close the financial literacy gap that so often holds lower-income families back from engaging with the banking system. MNRS hopes to elevate the organization’s impact as it strengthens and scales its program reach and undertakes a broader presence in the community.

In 2020, in response to the widening poverty gap and the growing struggle low-income families face to provide for their children’s basic needs, MNRS has expanded its program offerings by piloting a Long-Term Services Initiative. This initiative seeks to close the clothing gap for a select group of students and provide a measure of financial stability to their families by addressing their student’s on-going footwear and clothing needs for an extended period of time--often for a full year or more depending on family circumstances.

My New Red Shoes’ Long-Term Services Initiative works closely with staff from local schools and with case managers from partner agencies to identify the families that would benefit most from their children receiving new shoes and clothing. As each child’s clothing needs arise, MNRS receives information from case managers, social workers or counselors and works to provide needed items/support. Responsiveness to seasonal needs is critical to reducing anxiety and closing the opportunity and inclusion gap for students whose families struggle.