We find #SomethingGood in a new pair of shoes!
Sixty kids got a huge surprise the other day. They went shopping for new tennis shoes - and it did not cost their parents a dime!
The shopping trip came courtesy of two brothers and the nonprofit Dayna's Footprints, a foundation named after their late sister. She was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1997 at the age of 16. At the time, Sam Sayed was 11 and his brother Sharif was nine. One of the brothers' lasting memories of their older sister was the pair of name brand sneakers she bought them weeks before she died. Their first ever.
Sam Sayed believes those new shoes gave him confidence to walk into school and ultimately set him on a path to where he is now - a first-year medical student at TCU and UNT Health Science Center School of Medicine.
Sayed says in these kids the foundation now helps, he sees a reflection of himself and the remembers the pride he felt when he got those new shoes so long ago.
Wake Up to Something Good
Every morning, NBC 5 Today is dedicated to delivering you positive local stories of people doing good, giving back and making a real change in our community.
"We think about learning inequities in so many ways some kids don't have resources at school, the level of education and training from the school one of the things we've overlooked is what happens before they walk out the door. And that is just having the enthusiasm and the self confidence to walk out and go to school." Sayed said.
With the support of the 120 students in the first two classes at the medical school, Dayna's Footprints raised more than $20,000 to buy new shoes for 120 students.
Kids at Foster Elementary in Arlington, where the Sam and brother Shariff went to school and Fort Worth's Northside/Diamond Hill are now going to school in their new shoes. Sixty students in the Como and Stop Six neighborhoods will shop for their new shoes in the next few weeks.
