PERFECT FIT IN A CRISIS
For more than a decade, the Redwood City nonprofit My New Red Shoes has provided shoes and clothes to struggling families, boosting the self-esteem of kids who are homeless or in other unstable situations and ensuring parents don’t have to worry about one more expense in the ever-pricier Bay Area.
But as the coronavirus pandemic took hold this spring the agency realized it needed to make a pivot, and fast. Many of the clients it helps lost their jobs or saw their paychecks shrink as restaurants cut back hours and fewer people called for Uber rides. Others were frontline workers who stayed on the job, which meant they not only faced a heightened risk of contracting the virus, but also had to pay rising child care costs because schools were closed to in-person learning.
“The same families that were struggling are now being pushed further to the brink,” said Minh Ngo, My New Red Shoes’ executive director. “It has literally come down to, ‘Do I pay rent or do I pay electricity? Can I get food or can I get diapers?’ ” Ngo’s organization knew the best way it could help was the simplest — cash. By October, My New Red Shoes had distributed $39,000 in grants.
Naomi Robinson is one of those who has benefited from the new grants. A single mother who before the pandemic was working as a truck driver hauling asphalt, dirt and rock at Bay Area construction sites, Robinson had previously received shoes and clothes from My New Red Shoes.
But the pandemic has made things even tougher. When California locked down in March, Robinson and her 7-year-old son Robert were visiting her adult daughter in Fresno. They sheltered in place there for a few weeks, and in the meantime lost the single bedroom in another family’s San Jose house where the two of them had been living.
“We’re just basically tumbling in the wind,” Robinson said, “tumbling and tumbling until I can get a foot up and get into a place of our own.”