Sojourner’s Truth Staff
The third annual Delroy Church Angels Wings Foundation Cleat Event was held on Saturday, July 10 at Bethlehem Baptist Church. Steven and Caroline Lewis put together funds from donations and private monies – including their own – in order to purchase 700 pair of athletic footwear for whatever youth in the community needed them.
The couple was inspired by their son, Delroy, who passed away in 2018, was a football coach and mentor to so many youth. “He was always trying to help,” said Steven Lewis. After their son passed, “we jumped in, grabbed the baton and started running,” he said.
Their son’s girlfriend gave them the idea for a footwear giveaway and the donations started in 2018. Due to the pandemic, 2020’s event was called off and, even this year, a degree of pandemic uncertainty prevented the Lewis’s from collecting as many donations as they had hoped for.
The mission of the Foundation, a non-profit agency, is to provide athletic equipment, sport physicals, academic support, team meals and athletic enhancement to adolescents in northwest Ohio. The Foundation also hosts winter coat giveaways and, on June 20, 2021, held an Angels’ Night Out event at Ottawa Park featuring jazz artists Johnny Britt and featuring Stacey Richardson Crawford.
In addition to the footwear given away on Saturday, the donations also provided bags and sports physicals for those who sought them as well as Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines. Netty’s offered hot dogs for the hungry guests – and also chipped in with a donation.
