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Meet Anneka Maquay of Show Me Shoes Foundation

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Anneka Maquay.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Moving to Atlanta ten+ years ago, my goal was to pursue a professional career in dance. I’ve always dreamed of touring with Beyonce, Chris Brown and Justin Timberlake to say the least. But our creator had other plans for this life journey.

While training to prepare for this dream, I was also mentoring young girls through dance and during my time working in radio broadcasting.

Fast forward about a year, myself and long-time friend Shiv’on reconnected in Atlanta to discuss a collaborative vision to inspire young girls to follow their dreams and to help build the confidence for them to do so.

“We saw the need for more women to reach back in their communities and be great mentors for other young ladies. With lots of faith and prayers – we just got busy!”

In September 2009 in Atlanta, GA, Show Me Shoes was birth and we actively pursued our mission to rebuild confidence, starting at the sole.

Has it been a smooth road?
The ride to philanthropy has been a beautiful journey with a few speed bumps, speed traps and potholes along the way.

When we started our non-profit organization, we financially served our communities with the help and support of friends, family, co-workers inclusive of budgeting income from our FT jobs. The support we received was tremendous! (and still is!)

The idea of our mission was simply to accept and donate new and gently used shoes to women in need. Of course, that didn’t take much financial funding in the early stages – however as we began to add programs, funding became a priority and we knew it was time to “make this thing official” and get our 501c3 status fulfilled.

For years we ran our organization with no grants or large corporate dollars to help fund our initiatives. We had so many great ideas – yet not enough money to fund them. However, we didn’t let that stop us. We stayed dedicated to serving, refused to give up and relied on relationships and in-kind partnerships to assist in our executions. 

I must say, that we have some the most magnificent support system (sole support) that have kept us lifted in prayer, donated shoes, made monetary donations and stay by our side as we grew our mission. Because of this, we are preparing to celebrate year 10 of saving soles! Gratitude.

We’d love to hear more about this foundation.
Show Me Shoes Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose vision is to create a movement of confidence through self-love, mentorship and sisterhood.  

Show Me Shoes has served over 2,000 young girls and women in chapters inclusive of Atlanta, GA; Brooklyn, NY; Chicago, IL; Jacksonville, FL; Los Angeles, CA; San Diego, CA and the founders hometown of Kansas City, MO. 

In 2009, Show Me Shoes Foundation mission was to accept donations of new and lightly worn women’s dress and casual shoes. Our goal was to inspire women by rebuilding confidence starting at the ‘sole!’

For the past nine years and through our work to gift new “soles” to women in need, we recognized problems within our community and worked diligently to find solutions to those problems by creating initiatives like:

Teen Masterclass, where we show the value of education and transform lives by providing an interactive career focused experience and keys to career success. Panels + tours for masterclass have taken place at Fox Sports, Center for Disease Control (CDC), Hyatt Regency, Radio One and Georgia States’ Interactive Media Department.

Prom Project, which was created to assist high school students, who are unable to financially afford the luxury of the perfect prom. Registered attendees receive new and gently used special occasion dresses for their prom all while enjoying free make-up application, hair styling on-site and the opportunity to win other prom essentials.

Operation Sole Beautiful, kicked off September 2018 at Osborne High School in Marietta, GA, is an in-school program facilitated to encourage self-love, provide mentorship and help develop the confidence to carry with them on their life journey to achieve great heights. 

I am most proud of our ability to keep going despite the many obstacles one faces when entering the 501c3 world. We have been consistent students on this journey, learning something new each day! As easy as it could be to quit when we “don’t have the budget” or “don’t have a venue”, things always seem to work in ways that only our creator could align. With faith + our hard work, we continue on our mission to keep going for the sake of those we support and knowing that everything will work out – it always does. :p

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Absolutely! There is always room for philanthropy in the city and surrounding cities of Atlanta.

It’s important to understand the make-up of Atlanta. 

We (Atlanta) are a melting pot that skews higher with women. It was obvious that myself + Philanthropic Sister Shivon, wanted to provide mentorship and networking opportunities to a younger female demographic given we did not see a lot of what we provide growing up.

After much research and creating a foundation to grow our mission, we kept going and was open to the ebb and flow of what it takes to run a non-profit in Atlanta.

If someone wanted to start a non-profit/501c3 in Atlanta, I’d highly suggest creating an infrastructure and just get to it. 

There are many organizations here in the city that is looking to create purposeful opportunities within the community. Seek out MEANINGFUL organic partnerships with people, organizations or brands that align with your mission and get to work to solve whatever problems you’re looking to diminish collectively. 

For the past four years, we’ve worked with Atlanta’s, 3D Girls Inc to host dress drives for our Annual Prom Project event. Each year the founder and her team work together to assure we have quality dresses to successfully execute our event. On the flip side, we’ve worked with 3D Girls Inc on their mission to serve teen moms by providing them new or gently used soles at their Community Baby Shower. There are so much power and real influence what happens when we work together.

Get creative and have fun with how you serve! There are often a slew of events and philanthropic projects happening in Atlanta. Create experiences that offer life-changing memories for all involved.

It is most definitely a team effort! As we try to save the world as a whole, it starts by planting seeds within our communities and witnessing the evolution of change from ‘sole-to-sole’. ;p

Contact Info:

Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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