Golden K Kiwanis Club members Joe Wallace, LeGrand Cooper, Paul Johnson, and Ed Beardsley present a $1,500 check to Carver–Lyon Principal Dorothy Gallman and school parent liaison officer Ken Chandler. Contributed by Ed Beardsley Columbia’s Golden K Kiwanis club (all retirees) launched a children’s program called “Best Feet Forward” some four years ago. The program provides new shoes to 50 children in a Richland District One elementary school chosen by the District’s chief social worker, Tony Kelly Campbell.

This year’s school was Carver–Lyon Elementary. On August 18, a group of Kiwanians presented a $1,500 check to principal Dorothy Gallman. She will use the money to purchase 50 $30 gift cards from another sponsor, the ShoeShow Corporation of Concord, N.C. Those cards will then be mailed to Carver- Lyon’s 50 participating families who will use them to buy new shoes for their first grade or kindergarten aged children.

Since 2006, the project has benefitted children in four District One schools, and in 2009 Golden K won a grant from Kiwanis’s International Foundation to help it expand the program.