Your advocate packet — Leslie's Laces

The whole job, honestly

Make sure the places in your town know there are kids here who need shoes, and know how to take care of them. That's it.

Your area only. You are not responsible for 48,000 kids. You're responsible for telling your own town about the ones in it.
You don't need a yes. You are not closing a sale. Leave the information and let people who want to help find their way to it.
You never handle money. Not once, not for anybody. More on that further down.
Don't ask anyone to commit on the spot. Businesses are busy during business hours. Leave the list and the flyer, show them where the website is, and let them do it on their own time.
Build a small team. Three to five people you trust, splitting the town between you. That's what actually gets a whole city crossed off.

If there's a group of people doing this in every town, the board takes care of itself. No single person has to carry it.

1 Get three to five people

You're the leader, not the labour. Ask a few people you trust — family, friends, someone from church, a coworker — and split the town up. One person takes the banks, one takes the churches, one takes the shops on main street. An afternoon each and a town is covered.

Send them this same page. Everything on it works for them too — they don't need to sign up for anything and neither did you.

Nobody needs permission from us to do any of this, and there's nothing to join. If you'd rather work alone, that's fine too — it just takes longer.

2 The kids you're carrying

Add every town you're covering — your own, the next one over, the whole county if you want. Every kid still waiting there ends up on one printable page, ID numbers and all.

Start typing and the towns with kids waiting will come up. Leave the town blank to take the whole state.

3 What to say

Do not just hand over a piece of paper. A page left on a counter with no explanation goes on the back desk for somebody's boss to look at, and that boss is busy — it never gets read. That isn't rudeness, it's just what happens to paper nobody has been given a reason to care about.

So the paper is what you leave after the conversation, not instead of one. Here's the conversation. It's about forty seconds and you can read it straight off this page.

"Hi — I'm a volunteer advocate for a national nonprofit called Leslie's Laces. They buy and ship new school shoes to kids all over the US whose families asked for help."

"There are a few kids right here in our town who still need a pair for school, and I'm going around to local businesses this week to see if we can finish crossing them all off."

"Would it be possible to speak to someone about covering just one student? It's $60 a pair. If so, I'd love to show you how it works — it only takes a couple of minutes."

Notice what that does: it says who you are, gives them a real number about their own town, tells them exactly what you're asking for and what it costs, and asks for the one person who can actually say yes. Nobody has to guess what you want.

Ask for the person who can decide

Whoever is at the counter usually can't spend the money and knows it. That's not a brush-off, it's just their job. So ask early: "Is the manager or owner around, or is there a better time to catch them?" If they're not in, get a name and come back — a second visit asking for someone by name lands completely differently from a page on the back desk.

Say what the page IS before you leave it

If you're leaving the list and the flyer, hand them over with a sentence, not in silence:

"I'll leave this with you. This page is the actual kids in our town — each line is one child, their shoe size and an ID number. Whoever picks one just goes to the website, types in that number, and pays for that kid's shoes. Leslie's Laces buys them and ships them out. That's the whole thing."

Ten seconds, and now the paper means something. Without it, it's a flyer on a back desk.

Nobody has to decide today. You're asking for a conversation, not a signature. "Have a look and I'll check back" is a good outcome.
"No" is fine and it isn't about you. Plenty of places set their giving budget in January. Ask if you can pin one to the community board on your way out.
Ask who else you should talk to. The best lead in a small town usually comes from the person who just said no.
Write down where you went. Who you spoke to, and whether to come back. Three days later you will not remember.

If they say "yeah, we'll do one right now"

Help them do it while you're standing there rather than leaving them to work it out later. It's four steps and it's in the next section — read it before you go out so you can walk somebody through it without fumbling.

And if they ask you which kid to pick: give them your own family ID. You're doing the work for your town — there's nothing wrong with your kid being one of the ones who gets covered.

4 How they actually cover a kid

Know this cold. It's the difference between "here's a flyer" and "here, I'll show you." Four steps, about two minutes, on their phone or yours.

Go to leslieslaces.org/shoe-board. The QR code on the flyer opens the site too.
Search the town, or the ID number off your list. Every kid still waiting comes up — ID number, shoe size, boys/girls, town. No names, ever.
Pick one and press cover. $60 covers the pair. The checkout adds the card processing fee on top, itemised, so the full $60 reaches the shoes.
That's them done. Leslie's Laces contacts the family for the size and address, buys the shoes, ships them, and crosses that kid off the board. The business gets a receipt by email, and their own share page if they want to post about it.

They never deal with a family, an address, or a shoe size. They pick a number and pay for it — everything after that is handled.

5 What they'll ask you

These are the real questions, with the real answers. They're written the way you would say them out loud — "Leslie's Laces," never "we" — so you can repeat them straight off the page without it coming out confusing. Anything in smaller grey type is a note for you, not a line to say.

The first one matters most. Please use those words for it, because guessing costs somebody their accountant's trust.

"Is this tax deductible?": Say this: "Yes. Leslie's Laces is a 501(c)(3) — the IRS approved it in August 2026, backdated to 9 July, so anything given from then on is deductible. Their EIN is 42-3778270." This one changed on 16 August 2026, when the determination letter arrived. It used to be "not yet"; it is now a plain yes. If somebody gave back in July, their gift counts too.
"Who actually buys the shoes?": Leslie's Laces does. The money goes to them, they buy new shoes in that child's size, and they ship them to the family. Nobody local handles shoes, money, or anybody's address — including me.
"Can we cover more than one? The whole list?": Yes. People have crossed off entire towns by themselves. For a big one, or if they'd rather be invoiced or talk to a person, they can email info@leslieslaces.org and somebody there will take care of it.
"Can we be thanked publicly?": Yes, if they want it. Every covered pair gets its own share page they can post. Being named is always their choice — plenty of people stay anonymous and that's normal.
"Can we donate shoes instead of money?": That one needs a real answer from Leslie's Laces — sizes have to match a specific child, so it depends what they've got. Have them email info@leslieslaces.org.
"Who are you, and how do I know this is real?": Leslie's Laces is a nonprofit started by Colton & Taryn, a brother and sister, in honor of their mother, Leslie Morman. It started as a hometown fundraiser for about 25 kids in July 2026, went viral, and now has more than 48,000 requests on a public board. Everything is at leslieslaces.org — the board, every kid waiting, and what's already been covered. Pull the site up on your phone and show them — it settles this faster than anything you can say.
"What about the kids' names? Can we pick a kid?": You can pick a request, not a name. The board only ever shows an ID number, shoe size, boys/girls, and the town — never a name, a photo, an address, or anybody's story. That's on purpose and it doesn't bend.
"How long until the shoes arrive?": Once a pair is covered, Leslie's Laces contacts that family for the address and to check the size, then buys and ships. Nothing goes out until a real person has confirmed it.

6 The one rule

Never take money yourself.

Not cash, not Venmo, not a check with your name on it, not "I'll pass it along." If someone wants to give, they do it at leslieslaces.org/shoe-board on their own phone, or you send them to info@leslieslaces.org.

This protects you more than it protects us. The moment money moves through a person instead of the website, that person is the one who has to prove where it went. Keep yourself out of that entirely — you're carrying a piece of paper, not a collection plate.

Same reason we say it on every page: Leslie's Laces only exists at leslieslaces.org. We never DM, call, or text anyone asking for money.

7 The flyer to hand over

The flyer is deliberately blank where the town goes, so one stack works everywhere you walk. Write your town and how many kids are waiting there in the space, and staple your printed list behind it.

Get the flyer and print your list

8 Tell us how it goes

You don't report to anybody and you don't need permission for any of this. But if you want something — a list for a different set of towns, a bulletin blurb for a church, wording for a group post, an answer to something a business asked that isn't up there — just reply to the email or text this link came in, or write to info@leslieslaces.org. A real person reads it.

And if a place says yes, tell us. We like knowing which town got taken care of by somebody who lives there.