Thoughtful gift planning can help maximize the impact of your giving by using tax-efficient strategies:
Gift Planning
Leave a Lasting Legacy for Kids in Need
- Name Shoes That Fit as a beneficiary of your will, trust, retirement plan, or life insurance policy (in any amount or percentage).
- Give your IRA Qualified Charitable Distributions (for those age 70 ½ and older).
- Donate from your charitable lead trusts or life estates, or make outright or deferred gifts of real estate, personal property, rights or intellectual property gifts.
- Reduce income and capital gains taxes by putting your resources to work for kids in need.
Elodie's Legacy: Our Bequest Society
Elodie McGuirk founded Shoes That Fit in 1992. Her compassion for children in need of new shoes fueled her work and shaped our mission. In 2018, Shoes That Fit honored her contributions by launching a planned giving program in her name, called Elodie’s Legacy.
Ready to learn more?
Julie Stevens, our Chief of Staff, can walk you through the details on tax-effective ways to create change in the world.
Elodie’s Inspiration for Shoes That Fit
In 1992, in Claremont, California, Elodie (Silva) McGuirk heard a school aide share a heart-wrenching story about a student.
This little boy came into school crying because his feet hurt: his shoes were way too small. Sadly, his parents couldn’t afford to buy him new shoes. So his parents turned his toes under, shoved them into the shoes and laced them up, and sent him off to school. When the woman discovered the source of this little boy’s pain, she removed his shoes and massaged his feet to bring some relief. She then put his shoes back on and sent him back to class.
Elodie was aghast! Why didn’t the woman get him a new pair of shoes? The woman explained, “We have hundreds of kids like him. We wouldn’t know where to start.”
Galvanized to take action, Elodie posted the need on a bulletin board and engaged her coworkers at Harvey Mudd College to help deliver shoes to kids in need at that school in Pomona.
Shoes That Fit was born.
Elodie made it her mission that no child should have to go to school in poorly fitting shoes and suffer embarrassment and pain. From the very beginning, Shoes That Fit partnered with volunteers to make a difference right in their own communities, working directly with schools to identify the kids who needed shoes the most.
Elodie served as Executive Director of Shoes That Fit until 2002, and she continues to provide support and inspiration to the organization in her retirement.
