We caught up with Richard Morgan, Active Schools Coordinator, for the Glasgow cluster about his boot recycling scheme.
Can you tell us a little bit about the project and how it started?
I started this is November 2023 after realising an acute need for adequate footwear for young people playing football. In particular I was noticing this at a gross football festival i hold monthly at the Emirates arena in the East end.
I have ran this for 4 years now usually with more than 50-70 girls attending from primaries in the area. Increasingly there were young people attending in their school shoes or very inadequate footwear to play in. Some were even wearing their parents shoes which were many size too big for them or had holes in them etc.
This was also quite common upon talking to many teachers/coordinators about footwear in general for young people in primaries and secondaries. So I started an Instagram page which was shared far and wide to insta pages, Facebook groups and to all parents i knew that had children in football clubs etc to share in parents group chats to get in touch if they had any boots that were no longer in use that could be recycled.
I started to get many offers of boots, most of which are in unreal condition from children ls feet growing so quickly. I bought a couple of boot cleaning kits, sealable bags , stickers so I could clean them up properly and package them up with sizes etc on them.
I circulated to coordinators and schools that if they knew any young people that didn't have any boots to be able to participate in football events, clubs, festivals for the school to get in touch and i would try and arrange some boots for them. I really wanted the boots to go directly and discretely to the young people most at need, so have done this through teachers/Depute and coordinators main who are working with the children first hand and know where the need is.
What do you enjoy most about this Kit for All scheme?
I enjoy seeing young people being able to participate with adequate footwear and not having this as a barrier to sport.
What feedback have you received about the scheme?
I have had nothing but positive feedback from this initiative. I was recently able to equip two girls from the south side of the city to attend a Glasgow schools trial, which has received amazing feedback from the coordinators and teachers from the school.
What advice would you give to others looking to start a similar initiative?
It is very easy to get something like this started, this just started with an Instagram page which was then shared to all avenues who I thought could bring some boots to be recycled. I would say now that word of mouth is driving this forward as people are seeing success from it.
