In 2007, Kenton Lee was ready to leave Nampa, Idaho to see the world—he had just graduated from Northwest Nazarene University and hoped to learn about places outside of his hometown. Shortly after, Kenton went to live in Ecuador for six months and then in Kenya for six months. 

KENTON’S EXPERIENCE IN NAIROBI, KENYA

While in Kenya, Kenton lived and volunteered at an orphanage about an hour outside of the capital city of Nairobi—where the idea for The Shoe That Grows and Because International was born.

On a hot day a couple weeks into his stay at the orphanage, Kenton was walking down a dusty road to church with some of the children. “As we're walking,” Kenton shares, “there’s a little girl next to me. She has on this beautiful white dress, and she's probably eight or nine years old. As I looked down at her I remember just being shocked at how small her shoes were. They were so small she had to cut open the front to let her toes stick out.”

This image stuck with Kenton. Were all of the children in the orphanage wearing shoes that didn’t fit? He asked the director of the orphanage who told Kenton that they had received a big donation of shoes and clothes the year before, but, as kids grow rapidly, the orphanage did not have the funds to continually buy new items.

As the director told him this, Kenton recalls, “In that moment I remember just thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a pair of shoes that could adjust and expand their size? Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a pair of shoes that could grow?”

That night, Kenton wrote about this idea in his journal. He drew some sketches, and continued to think over his idea—a growing shoe.

THE IDEA FOR A GROWING SHOE

What Kenton didn’t know at that moment was the scope of the problem his little idea had the potential to address. Currently, over 1.5 billion people suffer from soil transmitted diseases worldwide. Without shoes, children are especially vulnerable to soil-transmitted diseases and parasites that can cause illness and even death. Children who get sick miss school, can’t help their families, and suffer needlessly. And since children’s feet grow so quickly, they often outgrow donated shoes within a year, leaving them once again exposed to illness and disease.

“When you see a child struggle with something avoidable, something preventable, it just kind of gets to you,” shares Kenton. With the realization that single donations don’t fix problems, Kenton now knew that the kids who lived in the orphanage “needed a better resource to really match up with their life.”

CREATING THE SHOE THAT GROWS

Returning to Nampa, Kenton searched the internet to find someone who makes a growing shoe.  “I really assumed this was a product that was already invented,” he remembers. “I would just reach out to that person and see if we could connect the dots to get them to kids. But I didn’t see anything like a growing shoe.”

When Kenton knew the growing shoe didn’t already exist, he banded together with a few friends, including current president Andrew Kroes, to try and turn this idea into a real product. Kenton knew that they weren’t “shoe people.” Without experience in engineering shoes, the group of friends decided to call up all the major shoe brands and pitch their idea, in hopes that someone with knowledge and experience in the shoe industry would love the idea of a growing shoe and go ahead and produce it. Again and again, the shoe companies said no.

At that point, Kenton realized it was up to them to make this growing shoe a reality. Excited about the possibility of making more long term, sustainable solutions to problems, Kenton and his friends created a nonprofit: Because International. Their first mission? Create The Shoe That Grows.

Taking matters into his own hands, Kenton reflects, “I remember first I bought probably 10 pairs of really cheap Croc type of shoes from Walmart and then a few crazy shoes from the thrift store. I brought all of these pairs of shoes into the garage and we just started cutting them up and gluing them together and piecing things here and there. We were trying to make a prototype.”

Kenton and his friends connected with a new company in Portland called Proof of Concept, and the founder there agreed to help Because International complete a real prototype of The Shoe That Grows. Through a year-long process, a team designed and hand-built the first sample of The Shoe That Grows.

In 2012, after much anticipation, Proof of Concept mailed the prototype to Kenton. “I remember I didn’t open the box for hours,” Kenton recalls. “It just sat in the middle of the floor in my house. I thought, ‘there is a lot of time and energy and years of my life that that are wrapped up in whatever is inside this box.’” 

Kenton worried that the prototype wouldn’t live up to his expectations and was bracing for disappointment. But when he finally opened it, he said, “I was so excited—I was over the moon. I thought this was the best shoe ever made in the entire world. I could not believe how awesome it was! If I was excited about The Shoe That Grows before, then I was even more excited now.”

Because International raised enough money to produce 100 pairs of this first prototype. Kenton and his wife, Nikki, took these shoes to four different schools in Kenya where kids tested them for about a year.

BECAUSE INTERNATIONAL’S FIRST SHOE DISTRIBUTION

With the feedback they received, Because International manufactured the first 3,000-pair batch of The Shoe That Grows and distributed them through small groups of people, many traveling on service trips.

Then one afternoon in April 2015, The Shoe That Grows received national media coverage. An article from Buzzfeed.com sparked large news sources to pick up the story, and overnight Kenton was receiving thousands of phone calls and emails. 

From that point forward, more coverage meant a larger community of people getting involved—more pairs of The Shoe were distributed than ever before. Throughout this time, Because International created new versions of The Shoe That Grows, brought on new team members, and worked to foster economic sustainability by moving The Shoe That Grows manufacturing to  a factory in Kenya.

Since distributions began, more than 350,000 pairs of The Shoe That Grows have been distributed in over 100 countries around the world.

In addition to the impact around The Shoe That Grows, Because International has grown to support other entrepreneurs who create life-changing, innovative products through the Because Accelerator. 

It started with an idea. Now, over a decade later, Kenton gets to honor his friends in Kenya not only by meeting a basic need of kids worldwide with The Shoe That Grows, but also through an organization devoted to finding and supporting more innovative solutions to the problem of global poverty. As Kenton learned through his journey, poverty is a problem we can solve together.

Because International’s mission is to use products as solutions to alleviate poverty by meeting immediate needs and creating opportunities for empowerment. Learn how you can support Because International.