Substitute Teacher Lends Shoes Off Own Feet to 5th Grader Using Glue To Hold Shoe Together
In Luke’s recounting of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tries to correct people’s understanding of how to treat their enemies. “Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back,” he says.
“And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” That sentiment is generally known as the “golden rule,” and one substitute teacher displayed it brilliantly June 2019.
WTVR reported that he voluntarily gave his own clothing to a very needy student. The story started with an art teacher at George Mason Elementary School in Richmond, Virginia.
It was June 12, graduation day for fifth-grade students. Yet one young pupil couldn’t walk across the stage to receive his diploma due to an incredibly sad problem: His shoes were quite literally falling apart.
“Our guidance counselor brought the student and his mom to me and said help we need any supplies that you have,” art teacher Bradley Kopelove said.
Kopelove tried to glue the boy’s size 10 shoes back together, but it didn’t work.
The sole simply peeled away from the rest of the shoe and flopped onto the ground. Disaster loomed — until a substitute teacher named Vohn Lewis stepped up.
“I said, ‘One of the teachers must have a size 10 shoe,'” Kopelove told Inside Edition. She recalled spying Lewis and saying, “Hey, Mr. Lewis. I’ve got a huge favor to ask.”
Lewis saw the boy’s predicament and immediately stepped out of his lace-ups. “Me being me, sometimes my heart leads me to certain situations,” he said.
“I said you can wear my shoes man, I wear a size 10.” Then he added, “It’s really just something that I’d do any day for any child.”
Indeed, Lewis has gone out of his way in the past to help young pupils look presentable. “If I see a child with a shoe untied or a collar messed up, I can’t sit there and let him walk by,” he explained.
“I’ll definitely walk up to them and let them know, and that’s just me.” The boy was incredibly grateful, as was Kopelove.
“I almost cried, I was so thankful,” she said. “That’s just how Mr. Lewis is and I knew that I could count on him.”
Ironically, the encounter almost didn’t happen. Lewis had considered leaving the school some months ago.
However, he finally decided that he needed to stay. Why? The kids needed him.
After the ceremony, Lewis told that boy “that he had to make a promise to me because it was nothing for me to do something like that for him. But he has to keep in mind that one day he’s going to be in the position of Mr. Lewis and he has to do the same thing.”
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