The Coventry Children’s Boot Fund is a Coventry based charity which provides school shoes for families in their time of need. No child should be made to feel different because their circumstances mean they don’t have a well-fitting pair of shoes to wear to school. The damage to their self-esteem and the potential to miss out on education can affect their life chances.
The fund was set up by teaching assistant, George Gibson at South Street School in Hillfields in Coventry in 1889. It was a time of great poverty. The boys were ‘wretchedly-clothed, under-nourished and almost bootless’.
George placed a ‘boot box’ on his desk and invited better-off boys and visitors to contribute money to buy boots and warm clothing for those in need.
The Coventry Children’s Boot Fund was born.
Unfortunately, the pressure of today’s fast-moving world can leave a young family behind. Even today many children attend school wearing worn out or poorly fitting shoes, which parents simply cannot afford to replace.
We do carefully assess the need, but we do not judge – it is the child that matters.
When you see a child at school wearing ill fitting, worn out leaking shoes in winter because the parents cannot afford to replace them, you realise The Coventry Children’s Boot Fund is as relevant today as it was more than 125 years ago.
The Coventry Children’s Boot Fund receives no government funding and relies on the kindness of donations and sponsorship.
Find out the steps we take to identify and support where help is needed most.
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