175 pairs and counting

Excited chatter could be heard from among the towering shelves as the pitter-patter of tiny feet trying on new shoes echoed throughout the store.

As part of the Kankakee Kiwanis Club’s 54th annual All God’s Children Must Have Shoes event, area students in fifth grade or younger recently received 175 pairs of free shoes at Shoe Carnival in the Bradley Commons shopping center.

The program, which originally was started by the Telephone Pioneers, a service club of phone company employees, was taken over by the Kankakee Kiwanis Club about 15 years ago.

Kiwanis Club members raise money each year through the sale of peanuts and gummy bears to put on the event with a $10,000 budget and a generous discount from Shoe Carnival, said Phil Angelo, membership task force chair for the Kankakee club.

Students are selected by social workers at school across the Kankakee, Bradley, Bourbonnais and Pembroke school districts.

Each child also receives a new pair of socks courtesy of the Women of the Moose and the Rotary Club of Kankakee County, as well as two packages of gummy bears from the Kiwanis Club.

Brandi Kaner is this year’s shoe project chair. For more information, visit kkiwanis.org.