When I heard about our next guest, I was truly inspired.
As a child Rikki grew up in poverty.
He was living in and out of shelters
and always had holes in his sneakers.
Now at 37 years old, he has given over 25,000 pairs
of sneakers to people in need.
Take a look.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
My name is Rikki.
I was born in Inglewood, right down the street.
I started this thing called HavASole,
where we collect new and gently worn tennis shoes
and get them back to people that might need them.
When I was nine years old--
Who's nine out here?
Anybody?
We have any nine-year-olds?
When I was nine, my mom went to jail.
I was homeless when I was nine.
When I was 10, who's 10?
I moved into a shelter in Santa Monica with my mom
when she got out of jail.
We couldn't afford shoes.
Shoes were very important when I was 10 years old, because they
gave me confidence.
So when I was 10 years old, this woman that lived in the shelter
before us, she gave me two pairs of Vans.
And I was like, oh man, I want new shoes
for the rest of my life.
Right?
And I'm starting to collect shoes.
And I keep collecting, because I love them so much.
25, 30 years go by, I decided to give them away.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
These are my new shoes.
Today, we have an organization that gives out shoes
all across the country.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Please welcome Rikki Mendias.
Thank you for being here.
And I was watching your story this morning in our meeting.
And it's just incredible what you've decided to do.
And what's more incredible is I learned that it gave you
a sense of direction.
Yes.
A lot of direction, a lot of confidence.
I remember being, what you'd call, a troubled youth,
in high school.
I didn't really like classes.
I would skip a lot of class.
I actually didn't graduate from high school.
I never went to college.
I went straight into the workforce.
I remember having jobs like, Toys"R"Us,
I had construction jobs, I had a pet store job, and Costco.
And they just really weren't fulfilling for me.
But what happened was I was always
able to get a brand new fresh pair of shoes with a paycheck.
So that's all that mattered.
Skip ahead, many years go by and I have 150 pairs of shoes.
And I'm only wearing about five of them.
And I looked at my shoe collection and I asked myself.
I was like, what am I really doing with my life?
And I couldn't sleep one night and the answer was, give away
my sneaker collection.
So you went where, that's first time
that you thought about that?
I hit the streets.
I loaded up my car.
And I tried to give out a pair of shoes.
And he was a size 13.
So I had to take to social media,
because I'm a 10 and 1/2.
So I had to take the social media and get more sizes.
And people from all over the country, friends and family,
they started donating immediately.
Wow.
And your moms in the audience, which I didn't even know that
was your mom.
But, hi.
Hi.
So you must have seen that he was a special kid
early on to be able to do this.
Well, I mean, I think it could have gone either way.
But when he was struck with the realization
that he had a purpose.
And a woman gave him shoes when we were in the shelter.
And that impacted him, he never forgot.
But it took two decades before it started pay forward.
It just goes to show you that by doing something for a kid,
you have no idea the impact and what that's
going to do for that kid.
That you've turned into this guy, just because of that
woman doing that for you.
OK, so you've given away 25,000 pairs of shoes.
How do you get these shoes?
Thank you.
Yeah, we get a lot of donations from big brands
and still private donations.
We've given out 25,000 pairs in over 25 cities.
We've actually, in February before COVID hit,
we went to Philly.
Kobe had just passed and it was devastating for us.
We're big Kobe fans, and we decided
to dedicate our eighth road trip to Kobe Bryant.
And we went all the way to Philly.
And it was special.
And we continue to do that.
And yeah, we're just excited for what we have coming up.
You were doing pop up stores before COVID hit.
How has that impacted you?
Again, COVID has been devastating to families,
job loss, all of these things.
What we're doing now is we challenged our local youth
partners.
And you actually showed some of the video.
We challenged some of our local youth partners
to stay home and stay active.
Where they would complete a workout program and a reading
program.
And then when they completed it, they'd
log in their stuff via social media.
And we'd just watch.
And when they were done, we delivered right
to their doorstep, like a sneaker delivery service.
Yeah.
And yeah, it was just something special about that.
Well, I want to talk to you more.
We have to take a break and maybe we
have something for you.
I'm not sure.
We'll be back.
We're back with Rikki Mendias?
Mendias.
Why is it so important, do you think, to give someone
a new pair of shoes?
I think the most important thing is the confidence that
comes with it.
I can remember going back and having holes in my sneakers
and playing basketball.
And what I think about today, like for our kids
nowadays, if they don't have a new pair of shoes or something
close to, it think about a basketball player,
a young athlete you know not having the right shoes.
He won't show at the tryouts.
So I kind of just go there and I say,
what can we do to put some fresh sneakers on someone's feet?
Right, right.
It's amazing what you're doing.
And of course, we love what you're doing.
And Shutterfly loves what you're doing.
Shutterfly loves to support, that you're
supporting your community.
And they want to give you this.
So in addition to this--
in addition to this, they want to donate
5,000 pairs of sneakers to you.
So HavASole.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
If you can help--
Shutterfly's giving another 5,000 Paris sneakers.
But if you can help HavASole, go to our website
to find out how you can donate and how you can help.
Because obviously, this is such a cool thing you're doing.