One entrepreneur has dreamt up a simple fix to an age-old problem: the constant need to buy new shoes for kids who outgrow them just months later. 
 
 American charity worker Kenton Lee and his team invented sandals that match the pace of children's growth via a system of buckles, buttons and pegs, which expand the shoes in length by up to five sizes. Build to last at least five years, they are made out of durable leather, metal snaps and compressed rubber. 
 
 In much of the developed world, the clothing needs of fast-growing kids can significantly impact a family's budget; but for those in impoverished areas who can't afford to buy shoes, the consequences can be far more severe. Without protection for their feet, these children are susceptible to infections from cuts, scrapes and soil-borne parasites that burrow into the skin, according to Lee's website The Show That Grows. 
 
 Lee was inspired to create the sandals while working at an orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya in 2007. He was struck by the sight of a small girl whose shoes were so small that the ends had to be sheared off so her toes could poke out, according to The Shoe That Grows. Looking around, Lee quickly realized the girl's plight was not uncommon. 
 
 Around 400 million children worldwide live on less than $1.25 a day, and according to the organization's website, more than 300 million have no shoes. 
 
 “So right there, spur of the moment, I thought, ‘Wouldn't it be nice if there was a pair of shoes that could adjust and expand their size? A pair of shoes that could grow?'” Lee told KPTV, a Portland-based television outlet. 
 
 Lee and his team shopped the idea around to various established shoe companies without success, before they partnered with Gary Pitman. The footwear veteran previously worked at Nike and Adidas, but left to start his own shoe design company, according to KPTV. It took Pitman several months to develop Lee's design into a finished product, and he used a 3D printer to model foot sizes. ||||| Frequently Asked Questions 
 
 How does this work? 
 
 We rely on individuals and organizations who are already serving kids living in poverty around the world to get our shoes distributed. These same groups help us with the cost of the shoes, and because we’re a nonprofit, we work hard to keep costs low at about $15 per pair for these high quality, long lasting shoes. 
 
 You can order shoes here at any time, and we’ll get them to you as quickly as possible so you can get them to kids in need! 
 
 Is there a minimum order size? 
 
 There is no minimum! We want to work with you whether you can help us get one pair or thousands of pairs to kids in need. 
 
 How quickly can I get the shoes? 
 
 Once we have your order and donation, we will ship the shoes to your US location within 7 business days and in many cases, much sooner. 
 
 I need to fundraise, can you help? 
 
 Yes! We have our own fundraising platform where you can create your own page and once finished we will send you one pair for every $15 fundraised. It’s quick and easy to set up and share with others. Once your page is set up, we’ll mail you a free fundraising toolkit that includes a pair of The Shoe That Grows! 
 
 Here’s an example of what your fundraising page will look like. If you’re ready, click here to start your own! 
 
 Do the shoes work for kids everywhere? 
 
 We are committed to creating shoes designed specifically for kids living in poverty all around the world. The original version of The Shoe That Grows is a somewhat open-toed design and sandal-like. This works very well for children in more temperate climates, both dry and wet. For children in areas with cooler seasons, many wear socks with the shoes. But we’re also in the process of designing a more fully enclosed version, providing more warmth and protection for kids that need it. More to come! 
 
 Do the shoes fit children of all ages? 
 
 The shoes are available in 3 sizes: 
 
 Our youth small size starts fitting kids between 3-5 years of age depending on the child and usually fits up to about 8-10 years of age or US toddler sizes 11 up to about a women’s size 3. 
 
 Our youth large size starts at about 8-9 years of age and fits to about 14-15 or into adulthood. It grows from about US women’s size 2.5 to about a size 8. 
 
 Our adult size starts at about a US men’s size 6 to about a men’s 11. 
 
 What is the next step? 
 
 Whether you work with a nonprofit/NGO, are a church, a school, club or an individual that wants to help get shoes to kids in need, we’d love to connect with you and share more! To order your shoes now, click here, otherwise send us your information and we’ll tell you more about how this works. ||||| Jeff "Swede" Swedenhjelm fell 33 feet Monday while chasing a monkey across a rooftop. The monkey had stolen his favorite Steelers cap. 
 
 A former Destin man known as the life of the party and a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan is fighting for his life in a hospital on the Indonesian island of Bali. 
 
 Jeff "Swede" Swedenhjelm fell 33 feet Monday while chasing a monkey across a rooftop. The monkey had stolen his favorite Steelers cap. 
 
 Villagers found Swede and brought him to a local hospital, where he was diagnosed with severe damage to his spinal cord. He currently is paralyzed from the chest down. 
 
 "Our utmost concern is to get Swede out of Bali and into a country with a spinal specialist," said his daughter, Lyric Swedenhjelm, who is a college student. 
 
 She said the medical care in Bali is what one might expect in a third world country, and that her father didn't even have an MRI for almost 24 hours after the accident. 
 
 Swedenhjelm is in a medically induced coma and is on a ventilator, his daughter said. He also has pneumonia. 
 
 Her father has no medical insurance and no money, Lyric said. He left Destin several years ago to work in Bali. She and her mother still live in Destin. 
 
 "He has a great team of friends that have been by his side," she said. "He's very popular, a social guy, always out and about organizing parties and events." 
 
 Lyric, who turns 21 Tuesday, said traveling to Bali is very expensive and that they are trying to channel all resources into having her father flown to Singapore for better medical care. 
 
 They have started a fundraising page on GoFundMe, which already has raised $26,000 It will cost about $30,000 to get him to Singapore and another $30,000 to get him treatment. The goal on the page is $100,000. To donate, visit the page by CLICKING HERE. 
 
 "All I want for Christmas or my birthday is for my dad to get this surgery as soon as possible," Lyric said. 
 
 His GoFundMe page shows him lying unconscious in a hospital bed. Under it, someone wrote what they thought the 40-year-old would say if he could. 
 
 "I am hopeful that the time we shared on this wonderful planet has given me enough love and respect in your heart to make you want to help. I have never been the one to ask for help, especially in monetary form, but any help will be taken to heart. Thank you all in advance. One Love. <3 Swede." ||||| There was excitement in Jonathon Nicola’s heart and an extra zip in his step. He was two days away from catching a flight from his home in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, to Nairobi, Kenya — the first leg in a journey that would bring him to Windsor. 
 
 That’s when the throbbing headaches began. 
 
 “My mother said, ‘I hope that’s not going to be malaria,’” Nicola recalled. 
 
 It was. 
 
 “When I get malaria it’s really hard to walk, or even breathe,” Nicola said. “I get fever and also headaches. This is the worst of malaria. You feel like your head’s going to explode and your eyes, you can’t see. Your body is so hot.” 
 
 Nicola speaks of the mosquito-borne infectious disease in the same tone that some of his Canadian teammates on the Catholic Central Comets senior boys’ basketball squad might grouse about coming down with the flu. 
 
 The 17-year-old wasn’t about to allow sickness to interfere with his dream of coming to Canada from his wartorn home and making a new start. 
 
 Nicola is a kid who stands out in the crowd. At six foot nine and 202 pounds, it’s inevitable. 
 
 It’s also the many ways his life experiences differ from the rest of his teammates that truly make Nicola a unique tower of strength, both on and off the court. 
 
 “A few of my friends know of my background, how we live over there,” Nicola said. “I don’t know how many of them have a clue of how it is in Africa.” 
 
 Catholic Central coach Pete Cusumano doesn’t know if he’s ever coached someone who was such a natural at the game as Nicola. 
 
 “I think this kid will have a chance at the NBA,” Cusumano said. “I have never said that about any kid from Windsor.” 
 
 Arriving in Windsor Nov. 22, just three days before his birthday, it would be wrong to suggest that Nicola has taken Windsor and Essex County Secondary School Athletic Association basketball by storm. 
 
 Considering the limited time he’s spent playing organized basketball, what he has accomplished on the court is truly astounding. 
 
 Cusumano insists Nicola’s ability to grasp things as quickly as he does is unheard of, especially considering he was basically at ground zero when he began the season. 
 
 “He’s never played organized ball,” Cusumano said. “He’s just played pick-up ball. He’s not used to structure, so everything’s new to him.” 
 
 South Sudan is the country that sent seven-foot-seven sensation Manute Bol to the NBA in the 1980s. It was another Sudanese player with U.S. college basketball experience, Deng D’Awol, who spotted Nicola while coaching back home and helped get him to North America. 
 
 D’Awol had played youth basketball with Ottawa’s Greg Dole, the son of Patricia Marsden-Dole, a former Canadian ambassador to Tanzania. He knew Dole would have the political connections to help, so D’Awol contacted him and together, they sought a spot for Nicola. 
 
 “They were looking for a prep school in the U.S.,” Cusumano said. “Greg says, ‘I know a guy from Canada who develops players.’ He put him onto me.” 
 
 Acquiring a Canadian student visa for Nicola took six months. Since there was no Canadian embassy in the South Sudan, he had to travel to Kenya. 
 
 “For Africans to come to Canada right now, it’s really hard,” Nicola said. “With the war going on, terrorism and all this, they make it real double hard. I had to go and come back (to Nairobi) many times, sometimes by bus, sometimes by airplane.” 
 
 It was all worth it because it has given him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity he’s not going to waste, he said. 
 
 In South Sudan, hardship is a way of life. There is no running water in Nicola’s home. 
 
 “Some days we don’t have electricity 24/7,” he said. “In Juba, some families can afford generators. Some families cannot. We don’t have a generator in our house.” 
 
 Civil war has raged in Nicola’s homeland since 2013. He’s among the more than 400,000 who’ve left because of the bloodshed. 
 
 Canadian teenagers might spend their free time debating the new Drake album or the latest Batman film. Nicola and his peers back home talk about the current uneasy truce in South Sudan. 
 
 “Over there, young kids 10, 12 years old, they talk about politics because our country is not a stable country,” Nicola said. “Any time we can have a war.” 
 
 When the latest hostilities broke out Dec. 26, 2013, Nicola and his family fled to their village. He was unable to attend school. 
 
 He found his sanctuary on the basketball court. 
 
 “I am playing basketball because otherwise, I am falling into things that my family doesn’t want me to do, the bad things,” Nicola said. 
 
 That is how he met D’Awol by chance. Seeing they both had size 16 feet, D’Awol gave Nicola a new pair of basketball shoes. He also gave him a leg up on using basketball to make his dreams become reality. 
 
 Cusumano applied to HomeStay Canada, which finds homes for foreign students, and Nicola now lives with his family. 
 
 Catholic Central assistant coach Reg Hart reached out to Windsorite and Detroit Pistons director of media relations Cletus Lewis, and Pistons forward Anthony Tolliver supplied what Cusumano described as “a crap load” of shoes and clothing that will fit Nicola’s large frame. 
 
 Nicola received little in the way of instruction in his homeland. “From the way I train over there, the guys I see here in high school, they play like pros,” he said. 
 
 While he is rapidly grasping basketball’s nuances, it’s not yet instinctive to him. 
 
 “That’s the part we have to get through,” Cusumano said. “He gets the ball and he’s thinking things through. The ball’s not in his hands and he’s trying to figure out where to go. He’s still thinking.” 
 
 Thinking is something Nicola loves to do and he thinks what’s most important is that he’s getting the chance to garner an education in Canada. If basketball helps him do that, he’s all for it. 
 
 “If I had the opportunity to go to the NBA I would definitely go,” Nicola admitted. “My big deal is the education. This is my main thing. 
 
 “If I focus only on sport, nobody knows what’s going to happen in the future. Maybe I go to college and I break my knee or my ankle. If I’m not educated, I won’t have the opportunity to get work either here or back home.” 
 
 Nicola’s dad John works in Saudi Arabia. His mom, Jackline, remains in South Sudan. He misses his family. 
 
 “Once a week I call my mother, but my mother, she’s really happy,” Nicola said. “She told me, ‘Don’t worry about me, just focus on your studies and being a successful man.’” 
 
 As he towers over them on the basketball court, perhaps in dealing with Nicola’s size and seven-foot-four wingspan, his Canadian opponents can get a glimpse into what it’s like to overcome incredible obstacles like the ones placed in front of him so far in life. 
 
 Nicola will allow none of it to stand in the way of the opportunity that now looms large. 
 
 Not malaria. 
 
 Not war. 
 
 Not anything. 
 
 bduff@postmedia.com 
 
 twitter.com/asktheduffer
– Think it's difficult keeping your growing child in fitting shoes? Imagine trying to do it on $1.25 a day. Some 400 million children live in such circumstances, and about 75% of them don't have shoes, Mashable reports. That struck Kenton Lee, 30, when he was working at an orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya. "Wouldn't it be great if there was a shoe that could adjust and expand—so that kids always had a pair of shoes that fit?'” he wondered, per his company's site, when he saw a girl wearing shoes so small they had been cut to let her toes peek out. Now such pairs do exist. The Shoe That Grows is a sandal equipped with various buttons and pegs to allow it to grow along with a child. It lasts five years, the company, Because International, says on its site. "I had no idea how important shoes were before I went to Kenya," Lee tells BuzzFeed. "But kids, especially in urban areas, can get infections from cuts and scrapes on their feet from going barefoot, and contract diseases that cause them to miss school." The Shoe That Grows sells for as little as $10 per pair, per the website, which notes that 50 pairs can be carried in a suitcase. You can donate to help send the shoes to countries including Ecuador, Haiti, and Kenya. Some 2,500 kids have benefited so far, BuzzFeed notes. (Another recent development in footwear: boots that literally put some spring in your step.)