Tuesday – May 1st - Montgomery, AL
The Kids to Love Foundation in partnership with the Alabama Adoptive and Foster Parent Association help kick off a rally for National Foster Care Awareness month.
6,029 pairs of shoes were placed on the capital steps – each pair representing a child in Foster Care in Alabama.
The message of the rally was clear: Put Foster Children first. Kids to Love Founder Lee Marshall shared the starting statistic “Lawmakers in Alabama make $134.25 a day, it cost $35.98 to house a prisoner in Alabama a day. Foster children in our state receive between $8 to $14 a day. We know 75 to 80 percent of people in the juvenile justice and prison system today are former foster children. The choice is simple, either we invest in the lives of these children today, or we pay for them tomorrow.”
Linda Williams with the AFAPA, and an organizer of the rally challenged those in attendance “To put our children first!”

The shoes on the capital steps were collected through the Kids to Love Heart & Sole drive. More than 16,000 pair of shoes was collected through the drive.
Paul Wilson with Soles4Souls, a foster parent of 10, made a donation of 18,000 new shoes! Soles4Souls will take the used shoes, recycle those at the Roanoke, Alabama facility and keep many in the state, and send others to help children around the world, many that live in orphanages.
Working with the non profit group Soles4Souls www.giveshoes.org Kids to Love and the AFAPA will be able to provide foster children across the state of Alabama 3 brand new pair of shoes, just in time for school to start in the fall!

First Lady Patsy Riley was in attendance. Secretary of State Beth Chapman & Representative Mike Ball spoke. Ball, a former foster child shared his personal story of spending time in Foster Care.
Miss Springville, Ashley Islee, a former foster child shared her story.

Kids to Love Foundation, making a difference in the life of a child, one child at a time!

Kids to Love partners with Souls4Soles to provide shoes to foster children!