Teens break world record giving away shoes to kids in need in San Diego

Linda Mcintosh, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Jan 6, 2025

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SAN DIEGO — A little more than 200 San Diego teens have broken the Guinness World Record for donating the most shoes in 24 hours.

The volunteers worked day and night Dec. 7 to unload thousands of boxes of shoes and give them out to folks in need for the holidays in a parking lot at the Sharp Spectrum Center in San Diego. By 6:30 a.m. the parking lot was filled with families awaiting the 8 a.m. start time.

The youths donated 21,604 pairs of shoes, totaling roughly $1.1 million, as part of the St. Nick’s Kicks project organized by the youth-led Chula Vista-based nonprofit Youth Philanthropy Council along with Evolution Design Lab and their Jellypop footwear brand, both based in the Los Angeles area. The last record was set by Iglesia Ni Cristo (Church of Christ) in Manila, Philippines, which donated 17,526 shoes to charity in 24 hours on April 29, 2016.

But for the teens, the effort was not just about breaking a record. It was about helping some kids who needed new shoes and probably weren’t going get them anytime soon. At the same time it showed that youths can make a difference in the community.

The Youth Philanthropy Council says the organization is about “Kids helping kids.” It bills itself as California’s largest kid-run nonprofit set on “breaking the cycle of poverty.” It has roughly 180 members nationally, mostly teens. Since it started five years ago, it has raised $3 million through sponsorships and fundraisers, from bake sales and book sales to carnivals and sweepstakes.

The group raised about $20,000 through its Honda Civic sweepstakes last summer. The money helped pay for renovation of the pediatric clinic at San Ysidro Health Center in Chula Vista and funded the construction of a school in Kenya, where students had been studying under a tree because their classroom made out of sheet metal was sweltering. The nonprofit also provided thousands of masks and other personal protection equipment for seniors during the pandemic.

The group was officially founded in 2019, but its philanthropic work began in 2018 after sixth-graders at the Evans School in La Jolla toured San Ysidro Health Center, a nonprofit that provides affordable health care. The students met other young people there and learned the center needed money to build a new exam room.

“We wanted to somehow help these kids,” said Augustus Holm, 18, founder and chairman of the Youth Philanthropy Council, who was 13 at the time. “So we made yearbooks and sold them at a mark-up and raised $14,000.”

In 2019 Holm, who was a student at The Bishop’s School, and teens from other area high schools raised more than $230,000 for the San Ysidro Health, Maternal & Child Health Center at the center’s 50th anniversary fiesta. The teens raised about $100,000 of that at a live fundraiser that they led during the center’s gala.

“We fell in love with this making a difference thing,” Holm said.

The teens organized their first St. Nick’s Kicks shoe giveaway in December 2020. The effort began as a way to help supply new shoes for San Ysidro Health Center’s annual El Zapaton shoe giveaway. They received a donation of 5,000 shoes from a wholesaler. But the Center only had 250 kids signed up to get shoes.

“So we had to figure out how to distribute the extra shoes to kids who needed them,” Holm said. They gave them out in a parking lot at South Bay Health and Insurance Services, and that was the beginning of St. Nick’s Kicks.

Most of the children hadn’t gotten new shoes in a year. Their happiness convinced the teens to do more.

“There’s really nothing more incredible than being able to see a smile you bring to someone’s face. It makes all the hard work and long nights completely worth it,” said Anisa Pourteymour, 16, a junior at Cathedral Catholic High School, who joined St. Nick’s Kicks when she was 12 and now serves as the nonprofit council’s president.

“All of them believe that helping others is something you must do,” said Pat Salas, Holm’s mother, who is lead adviser for the Youth Philanthropy Council. “All of them, get immense joy and satisfaction from doing it.”

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