Our team was thrilled and a bit overwhelmed to see TWO PALLETS of boots arrive at our office on Tuesday morning (which, for the record, is only about half the shipment we're expecting). It was freezing outside but that didn’t stop us from making about twenty trips each to unload both pallets. We certainly got our steps in that day!
It was a bit of a shock to see the mountain of boots piled up in our office. In fact, it really brought out the kid in our CEO & President, Nora Carpenter (see picture above). Who needs a pile of leaves when you have a pile of boots?
We can’t thank our friends at 
Lone Cone enough for such a generous donation! Their patterned kids' rain boots are the number one selling item. They sold over 100,000 pairs on Amazon just last year! The patterns are all so cute and they even partner with Treasure Valley artists to create timeless designs in classic themes.
This spring, they wanted to launch a new rainbow stripe pattern and in working with the factory in Asia, they completed a production run that was outside of that pattern's specifications. In a nutshell: the boots weren’t compliant with the design and could not be sold.
Annalisa DeMarta, owner of Lone Cone said, “Our plant offered to dispose of the boots at their expense, but we opted to bring them here to the Treasure Valley. Once they arrived, we considered selling them for $5/pair in one of our sample sales, but decided that we would rather donate them to local kids in need. To do that, we knew that we just had to call the United Way and they would take care of the rest. After working with the United Way over the holidays on a donation, it was clear that UWTV has a wonderful relationship with so many local charities and understands what each group needs. The donation made my team feel good to be able to give back to our community, as we get so much support from our fans. From what we can tell, the majority of our 7,000+ facebook followers are Treasure Valley based!”
Big thumbs up to Lone Cone for the hundreds and hundreds and HUNDREDS of pairs of boots they've supplied not only kiddos in the Treasure Valley, but adults too! We know we have children in our valley showing up to school in December in flip-flops, and in boots being held together with duct tape because they grew out of them last year. These new boots are a game-changer.
United Way of Treasure Valley, CEO & President says, "Beginning last year, Lone Cone accepted United Way’s invitation to become part of the Community School movement by shipping production mishaps to us to be shared with schools and onto the feet of awesome kids without appropriate shoes. The early efforts worked so well, Lone Cone now calls United Way when they know they have a batch of product that they aren’t able to sell through their online retailers, but still are perfectly functional. So what do these boots make possible? They are much more than colorful footwear. These boots mean better health during winter months. These boots mean better attention in the classroom. These boots mean confidence, fitting in, being the cool kid for once. These boots make success possible. And none of it would be as possible or powerful without United Way to see the opportunity, motivate and inspire action and create the pipeline to get boots to kids."