Girl with cancer designs shoes for foundation
The newest pair of custom shoes on Kylie Rose Jacobs’ feet are a tribute to her future. Speckled bright coral pink and yellow with blue and light pink accents, they represent the Great Barrier Reef and her hopeful career as a marine biologist.
They’re also a reminder of a time when that future was fragile.
But since 9-year-old Kylie was diagnosed with cancer more than three years ago, moving in and out of remission three times since then, she’s never focused on her fragility. Her main focus has been on getting better, helping other sick kids and inspiring others to do the same.
“She’s never complained,” said Carrie Jacobs, Kylie’s mom. “She’s always been so positive and angelic.”
The Copley girl’s resilience has since inspired a 5K run, a giving movement, a foundation and — the latest — a relationship with Nike to design a pair of limited-edition shoes that went on sale Monday and will raise more money for kids like her.
Diagnosed
Carrie and Eric Jacobs, Kylie’s parents, were inspired to establish a 5K run after the overwhelming love and support they received during Kylie’s time at Akron Children’s Hospital when she was diagnosed with kidney cancer in January 2015.
They held the first race that August and raised thousands of dollars for Akron Children’s Hospital, just in time to celebrate Kylie’s first lapse into remission.
Andy Shepperd was one of many to participate in the 5K and find inspiration from Kylie’s resiliency that year. He ran again the next year, but his inspiration turned to determination when he learned Kylie’s cancer had come back on her liver in February of 2016.
“I was trying to figure out how I could inspire this little girl on her road to remission,” Shepperd, who lives in Akron, said. He decided to design Kylie a pair of shoes on the Nike By You (NikeiD) customization website that matched her 5K logo to give to her at the next year’s race.
Kylie was once again declared cancer-free that September. But just three months later, right before Christmas, the cancer returned on her liver.
Shepperd knew that was the right time to give Kylie her shoes. He sent a text to Eric Jacobs with the picture of the colorful sneakers and a message: “... The way I see it if you’re gonna outrun cancer you’ve gotta have the right shoes.”
Eric Jacobs responded with an outpouring of gratitude. He gave the shoes to Kylie before she underwent more intensive treatment, and she wore them nearly every day.
Outrunning cancer
And so, Project Outrun was born.
Shepperd was inspired to help other kids like Kylie, so he founded the organization to empower more pediatric cancer patients with a new pair of custom Nike shoes.
Once a month, he visits Akron Children’s Hospital to host design nights, where the kids get to eat dinner and sit down with Shepperd to design their shoes. They also get swag bags filled with “I’m not sick, but my shoes are” T-shirts and a personal finish line to write goals on.
Once kids accomplish the goals, Shepperd encourages parents to hold out the finish line so kids can bust through it in their new shoes.
“As a runner, nothing feels better than running through the finish line,” Shepperd said.
Since Shepperd started the foundation in 2017, it has funded more than 200 pairs of shoes for kids — including another pair for Kylie, who got to design her own sneakers with her favorite colors through Shepperd’s foundation.
“I thought it was the coolest thing in the world,” Kylie said.
As Shepperd looked to grow Project Outrun, he used a connection he has with a Nike employee to tell company officials his story and seek additional support.
Nike connected Shepperd to a partner of the company called Cultivator, a website that sells Nike shoes for a limited amount of time designed by select people to raise proceeds for their brands.
Out of 8,000 applicants, Shepperd was one of 30 to be chosen for the October shoe launch.
“At Nike we believe in human potential, and so does Andrew. When we found out that Andrew was using Nike By You to help children with cancer, we connected and told him we’d help him in any way possible,” said Ken Dice, the global general manager of NikeiD. “We look forward to continuing our relationship with Project Outrun, and never forgetting that when kids outrun cancer it helps to have the right shoes.”
After Shepperd was chosen, he needed to come up with a design for the shoe — and he knew just the person to do it.
Full circle
Kylie designed gray Pegasus 35 running shoes with coral-colored flecks with her future in mind. They will be on sale through Sunday this week and cost $160 a pair.
Normally, 10 percent of the proceeds made on Cultivator go back to the organization that designed them, but because of Shepperd’s nonprofit status, his foundation will receive 40 percent back.
Shepperd is splitting those proceeds with Akron Children’s Hospital and its Showers Family Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders.
The release of the shoes comes at an exciting time for Kylie and the Jacobs family.
In August, the Jacobses held their fourth 5K, where they raised more than $20,000 for Akron Children’s Hospital and brought their total donations to more than $72,000.
At that race, people also helped Kylie on a project she started after her first diagnosis and has continued ever since. She and others handsew bags and fill them with coloring books, Play-Doh, socks and other goodies for sick kids at Akron Children’s. This year, people helped stuff hundreds of bags and brought her donated total to more than 1,000 since she began.
“It’s always wonderful to have grateful families and patients who want to give back,” said Dr. Jeffrey Hord, Kylie’s primary oncologist and the director of the Showers Family Center. “What’s unusual about Kylie is she started doing all that in the midst of very difficult treatment herself ... She’s just a remarkable little girl.”
Best of all, it’s the first year Kylie has been cancer-free for a full year, the first year she’s made it to the first day of school since her diagnosis — and “the first year she’s had a whole head of hair,” Carrie Jacobs added.
“It felt so good to be [in school] for the first day,” Kylie said.
Through it all, Kylie has wound up with three custom pairs of Nike shoes: a pair she wore in some of her toughest times, a pair that she created at the beginning of her longest period of recovery yet and a pair that will empower others on similar journeys.
“I’m going to keep all of them to show my kids,” Kylie said.