August 28, 2024
We interviewed Jimmy Guidos of Western Youth Services about Kicks for Kindness, a month of acts of kindness topped off by new shoes for 100 kids.
What is your role at Western Youth Services? And what does the organization do?
Western Youth Services partners with the Anaheim Elementary School District to run a back to school program called Jump Start.
This program teaches Social Emotional Learning – it’s all about teaching kids how to manage strong emotions, make friends, keep friends, navigate conflict. We look at everything through a trauma-informed lens. So many of these children have been through trauma.
I am a Behavioral Health Specialist Coordinator. I work with kids after school – being that positive, caring adult for them to help them talk through their challenges.
You are located in Anaheim – can you tell us a bit about the challenges Anaheim kids face?
Many people think of Anaheim as Disneyland – as the happiest place on earth (that’s also rather expensive). But that’s just a pocket of Anaheim. These families have financial concerns – high cost of rent, affording groceries, affording reliable transportation. Some families are facing evictions due to the Disneyland expansion, so they are looking for new places to live.
The children also have other stressors, including learning recovery after the pandemic. For many, learning at home via Zoom was a difficult situation, and now they are trying to catch up.
They also have the challenge of growing up in the social media age. There’s a pressure to be viral, but also just like everyone else. Bullying can be a 24/7 thing, instead of just at school.
Just getting to school regularly is a challenge for some of our students. Sometimes it’s no clean clothes, no clean shoes, no shoes at all.
What gave you the idea for Kicks for Kindness? And what is it?
Well, Kicks for Kindness was really an extension of FireFridays, which is a day I came up with to make the students feel seen, heard, and valued.
Teachers would invite kids who were improving in some way, or just kids who needed some more positivity. And they would come to my office and I would clean their shoes and just chat with them. I’d ask them how their day was going, how their families were doing, what they liked to do for fun.
It was helpful for me – in this kind of role you can have vicarious trauma, talking about difficult situations with these children, you can take on their pain. It can be very draining. So it was great to just have caring, positive conversations with the kids. I could get to know them better, build trust while talking about ordinary things.
I had the idea to expand FireFridays to not just cleaning shoes, but giving new shoes. I researched and found Shoes That Fit and you committed to providing 100 new shoes for the kids. It was so much more than I’d been hoping for!
I picked the first school I worked with, where I had been for four and a half years. For the month of February, we encouraged the kids to do acts of kindness. Teachers commended students for things like helping another student clean their desk, staying to help a teacher set up, etc. It really helped create a culture of kindness at the school.
Wanting shoes can be seen as materialistic. But I know the difference it can make for these kids. There’s an instant boost of self-esteem in getting new shoes. It really goes a long way for these kids. It was a dream for me to give shoes, because I’ve been that kid, waiting for my parents to be able to afford new shoes for me.
I tell the kids, the brand doesn’t really matter. It’s the steps you take every day in these shoes. Steps to be more kind, honest, to learn from your mistakes, to own up when you weren’t your best and apologize.
We’ve received messages from the families now that the kids have their new shoes – they are so grateful to have their kids’ basic needs met. The kids were so excited. Their smiles said it all. One student could hardly muster up the words to tell us what it meant to him to get new shoes.
I was so happy with the outcome of Kicks for Kindness. I always tell the kids, “In a world where you can be anything, be kind!” The principal has created a mantra for the school: Be KOO – Be Kind Over and Over.
This is so much bigger than shoes. It’s about the kids knowing they are cared for and valued.
Thank you, Jimmy, for all your work for the kids! And thank YOU, our donors, for making these new shoes a reality for these children who need them! Your gift helps these children know they are valued, seen, and heard.
