By Brittany Hanson/Garden Grove Journal
You can tell a lot about John Borack by his shoes. On this particular day, they are neon green. They match his shirt. Today, John’s shoes say he’s a pretty bright guy.
The thing is, these aren’t just any shoes. These are the ubiquitous footwear of Converse, the Chuck Taylor All-Star sneaker.
Chuck Taylor the man was an early basketball player who played for the original Celtics and the Akron Firestones. He was looking for an off-season job in 1921 selling shoes for Converse.
After making some suggestions on how to improve the shoe, his iconic signature was added to the inside ankle of the shoe and has stayed there ever since. Taylor promoted the shoe not only through wearing them, but actually selling them himself and promoting them by teaching basketball clinics across America.
Despite the rise of more high-tech footwear, the old-school sneakers (affectionately called “Chucks’) are hot sellers today.
Borack, community relations manager for Time Warner Cable, started “Bucks for Chucks,” to help kids from the Boys & Girls Club in Stanton who need shoes. He also might be trying to spread an agenda of making sure everyone is wearing cool shoes. Or it could be that he’s just a guy who wants to give back to a community and kids that need footwear.
“I see a lot of kids around here who could use some new shoes,” said Borack, who is also president of the Boys & Girls Club board of directors this year, “I want to do something to help.”
If you look at Jacob Lei’s shoes, you can tell a lot about him too. Him and John. Because the specialty Metallica kicks that Jacob proudly wears used to belong to John.
Jacob’s shoes, or at least lack of All-Stars, inspired Borack one day to give him a pair from his collection of about 151. The collection may have grown even today.
Borack went along his day, went home and posted online that he had given a pair of his precious collection away and felt pretty good about it.
And that’s when the e-mails started coming in.
Friends from the Internet, some of whom John has never met face to face, started talking because they wanted to do the same thing. Some sent checks from as far as Louisiana just because they thought Chuck Taylors are cool.
So far, one pair of shoes on Jacob Lei’s feet has moved people to send in over $1,100 to help. There are now forms for kids at the Boys & Girls Club Stanton office asking for shoe sizes and favorite color.
But how do they determine who might need shoes?
“You use your eyes,” said Pam Schoonover, executive directive of the Boys & Girls Club in Stanton, “You know who really needs something. When you know the families, you know who the boy is with the shoes that are way too big. But he’s wearing them because they were his older brother’s, even though they’re falling apart.”
The shoes aren’t that expensive. At the Converse outlet stores they can be as low as $9.99 a pair, according to Borack, a man who knows where and how to find his Chucks.
Trust the man.
Borack bought his first pair in the 1990’s as an alternative to Van’s slip on shoes. At first his idea was, “This pair is cool,” or “Hey, these are on sale,” and that has mushroomed into a shoe collection that exceeds his wife’s footwear habits.
Now he has a pair for each holiday, three even for Christmas. His most worn are a pair of comic book prints that may have been one of the first pairs that he bought.
If you look at Lei and his immaculate Metallica Chucks, you can tell a lot about how much he cares about them. But loving his sneakers isn’t anything new for this guy.
Lei’s first pair of Chucks came to him when he was6. A basic pair of black high top All-Stars that he said made him feel so very, incredibly, cool. His mom made him leave them in the garage, where the whole family left their shoes before going into the house.
“I tried to sneak them upstairs to clean them up and polish them when I would get home from school. But my mom would get so mad at me.”
