Violence over sneakers has been a recurring story this holiday season, but there are people out there who are using sneakers to do good. When North Carolina high-school student Yaovi Mawuli noticed his classmate Jared Newby was being bullied over his ragged shoes with holes in them, Mawuli decided to do something about it.
"Whenever you have a chance to give, you just give to someone other than yourself," Mawuli told WTVR. The generous 18-year-old, who is a collector himself and member of a Facebook sneaker group, gifted Newby with a pair of lowtop "Concord" Air Jordan 11s.
Mawuli did have one problem, though — how to present the sneakers to his classmate without making Newby feel bad about himself? Taking to his Facebook group for advice, Mawuli presented the Js to Newby via the school's counselor and became a national story.
"It felt like I was standing on air," Newby told WTVR. "And walking in them felt even better."
