Happy feet: Young fire victim gets new shoes

THE shoes that were handed out by organizers of the Milo Marathon Cebu Leg couldn’t have come at a better time for one student of Tejero Elementary School, who curiously enough is named Joenard Liston.

Liston is the Cebuano term for a shoestring.

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Liston, the boy, was one of the victims of a massive fire that hit T. Padilla last Aug. 9.

He was about to sign up for the Milo Marathon Cebu Leg when he heard that there was fire near their place.

At that time, all Liston could think of was to run home and help his mother and two younger siblings save whatever they can from their house.

When he got home, he ran inside their house and grabbed all their clothes before the
fire got to their house.\

When the fire was finally doused, he looked around the belongings they salvaged and realized he failed to save his only pair of shoes.

“High cut ra ba to nga rubber shoes. Wa gyud nako nadala ug apil. Gipalit raba to ni mama para sa abli sa klase,” said Liston, the son of a housewife and a garbage collector. (It was a high-cut shoes that my mother bought for me for the opening of classes.)

But despite losing his precious shoes, he said he was thankful that his family was safe and that their chapel was not burned down because they had a place to stay.

During the turnover of the shoes last Friday, the young student was all smiles after having been given brand new shoes from Milo.

Among all his classmates, he was the most excited to wear them and he eagerly walked around to try out his new kicks.

“Nindot kaayo. Puli sa akong sapatos,” said Liston. “Excited nako mu-apil sa dagan,” said Liston. (It’s a very nice replacement for my shoes and I’m excited to join the race.)

Liston will join 23,000 others answer the starting gun of the 34th Milo Marathon at the Cebu CIty Sports Center today.

Milo Marathon adopted an advocacy that gives rubber shoes to 400 students from a selected school and Tejero Elementary School was chosen as the recipient.

“This was really a huge help because not a lot of students are fortunate enough to easily get new shoes. Although these kids have shoes, most of them go to school in
slippers. And they can now use this in their PE classes,” said one of the teachers.

Milo brand marketing manager Steph Uy said they plan to do this yearly.

“Expect that we will continue doing this every year. Milo has also been contemplating on giving out scholarships but that is still on the drawing board,” said Uy.