The Iowa-based organization is headed up by Jim Brown, who brings together the passion of a wrestling fan along with expertise gained as a successful direct marketing professional. Brown's Wrestling for Life helps provide opportunities for young people to be introduced to the sport in multiple ways, such as providing tickets so they can attend college wrestling events to experience the excitement of the sport from the stands, as well as by offering financial support to women's wrestling programs and urban wrestling organizations to open up additional opportunities for participation. Now Wrestling for Life is doing what it can to offer shoes for young wrestlers in need.
"Providing wrestling shoes is a fledging effort," Brown told InterMat. "Quite coincidentally, I received three requests for help with shoes in November."
"I did some preliminary investigation and found the inability to afford shoes to be more pervasive than I expected."
In a recent email message to the wrestling community, Brown cited requests for help from Iowa, Ohio and Oklahoma, three of the nation's wrestling hotbeds.
"Wrestling is not an expensive sport, but all over the country the inability of many parents to afford decent footwear stands as a roadblock to the participation of thousands of kids," Brown wrote. "Wrestling for Life has only recently begun supplying shoes as a part of our mission to 'get 'em on the mat and keep 'em on the mat.'"
A $25 donation buys a decent pair of used shoes while $50 gets a young athlete new ones, according to Brown.
Individuals within the wrestling community who wish to support Wrestling for Life's efforts to grow the sport by helping to provide wrestling shoes for young athletes in need may do so by making a secure donation online via credit card or PayPal at the organization's website ... or may mail a check to Jim Brown, Wrestling for Life, 130 24th St. NE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52402-4936. (Please write "Shoes" on the memo line of your check.)
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