Sports charity comes to Calgary to help offset the cost of running shoes – Calgary | 24CA News

An Ontario-founded sports activities charity has made its solution to Calgary in hopes of guaranteeing extra youngsters can lace up and hit the monitor.

Long-time runner Claudia Belanger is behind bringing The ReRun Shoe Project to town for the primary time because it started in Kingston in 2016. It formally kicked off in Calgary earlier this month.

Belanger says the charity collects used and new sneakers that “still have life left in them and then we donate them through local youth groups or homeless shelters throughout the community.”

Belanger says this system was initially based by her pal and now Canadian Olympian, Julie-Anne Staehli.

Since this system’s starting, it’s collected greater than 3,300 donated pairs of trainers from throughout the nation, from cities together with Kingston, London, and Edmonton.

“I thought it would be really cool to bring the project to Calgary, especially if we can donate to lots of youth groups (for) kids who want to start running but they can’t because they can’t afford to.”

Belanger can attest to the price of the game. She has been working since she was 14 years outdated and estimates that in her time as a runner, she amassed greater than 50 pairs of trainers, having purchased a brand new pair each two to a few months.

“You usually need three pairs of shoes — your kind of like practice training shoes, your spikes, your racing flats — so it really adds up,” says Belanger, expressing the necessity for donations.

By mid-afternoon on Sunday, the charity had collected only one pair of used sneakers throughout a Dinos monitor meet outdoors the Jack Simpson fitness center on the University of Calgary. That was till a mom, Lianna Thorburn, donated to the charity practically two dozen pairs of sneakers beforehand utilized by her two sons.

Thorburn believes that whereas working will be costly, the ReRun program may help youngsters keep on the monitor.

“Running shoes can still be a hundred bucks, a hundred and fifty bucks, and up to two hundred dollars for a really good pair,” Thorburn says.

“So, if a child can actually use these ones again, then it’s definitely going to make it a lot more accessible for them.”

To assist deliver in additional pairs, ReRun has additionally partnered with the Caltaf Athletic Association.

Executive director Paula McKenzie believes that by bringing in additional sneakers, extra youngsters will be launched to trace and discipline.

“All you need is a pair of running shoes for track and field,” McKenzie says.

“If we may give that to you, that opens up an entire world, and I feel sports activities is life-changing, life-long bodily literacy, life-long friendships, and so to be gifted a pair of sneakers, it may well simply open all the things up.“

Lightly used to new sneakers will be donated at The Tech Shop and Strides Running Store places in Calgary.

&copy 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.