Guarantee Shoe Center kicks off its annual Shoes for Our Homeless Shoe Drive
Each year it seems to get bigger. Since 1990, Guarantee Shoe Center’s annual Shoes for Our Homeless Shoe Drive has inspired residents of Bakersfield and beyond to clean out their closets, sift through their newer and older shoes for pairs they no longer wear, and donate them to the annual shoe drive.
Sometimes by the trunk load. Over the years, the modest shoe drive became an event, and the event became a tradition, and the tradition became not just something big, but something gargantuan.
“So far, 105,000 pairs of shoes, new and used (have gone to) the Bakersfield Homeless Center, which is now the Open Door Network,” said third-generation Guarantee Shoe Center President Rosco Rolnick.
One reason it’s grown is that over the years, the shoe drive has gained credibility, prestige, even a certain cachet. So much so that shoe vendors have joined the effort by donating hundreds, even thousands of new shoes to the noble effort.
Florsheim, a shoe manufacturer founded in 1892, and one of the store’s longtime vendors, is just one example. It has donated countless pairs of new men’s and women’s premium shoes to the drive.
And other vendors are following suit.
Rolnick’s longtime friend and marketing consultant Jim Darling has watched it unfold for decades.
“Thirty-four years ago, a young man, entrepreneur Rosco Rolnick, came to me and said, ‘Hey, Jim, I have an idea,” Darling remembered to a small crowd that gathered in the store Thursday.
Darling saw plenty of potential in the drive. Not only would it benefit the men, women and children at the Bakersfield Homeless Center — which would later become the Open Door Network — but the annual drive would raise the level of Guarantee Shoe Center from a successful retail outlet to a local business that has created a legacy bigger than itself.
It may have started out as a humble shoe drive, but in just over
three decades, the annual Shoes for Our Homeless Shoe Drive has become something more.
It provides self-respect. It lifts people up, simply by providing a decent pair of shoes to someone who has been doing without.
Sarah Rolnick, Rosco Rolnick’s daughter and store vice president, watched last year as new and used shoes arrived at the store, sometimes one or two pair at a time, sometimes by the pallet load.
Something extraordinary was happening as the mountain of shoes in the store basement continued to grow.
The modest shoe drive had become something else entirely.
Open Door Network CEO Lauren Skidmore has also witnessed the magic.
“Rosco has vendors that are so loyal to Guarantee Shoe Center, they have come every year and gone above and beyond Rosco’s ask,” she said Thursday.
And each year she’s been a part of it, the drive has exceeded its goal.
“Rosco is really respected by the vendors and the community, and we couldn’t do it without him.”
Usable shoes can be dropped off at Guarantee Shoe Center, 21st Street and Chester Avenue in downtown Bakersfield; KGET TV, 22nd and L streets; Capital Dental Group, 8701 Camino Media; and Nona Darling, Realtor at RE/MAX Golden Empire 3955 Coffee Road.
The drive ends April 29. This year’s sponsors include KGET TV, Telemundo, Capital Dental, The Bakersfield Californian, Meathead Movers, GET and Nona Darling, Realtor.