BAKER COUNTY, Fla. — On the to do list: fix your tummy ache, put a band aid on your cut, and possibly change a life. That’s a school nurse for you.
Not all are up for the challenge, but in Baker County, Nurse Julia Rhoden is being noticed nationally as a LifeChanger of the Year.
We all put our shoes on the same: one foot at a time.
Rhoden, more commonly called Nurse Julia, noticed some kids needed help accessing these basic needs. Her mission is straightforward, but her reason why can be hard to talk about.
”We are at Keller Intermediate School and this is my shoe closet," she shows us into her donation storage.
There are dozens of brand new and brand name shoes in all sizes. These shoes are for kids who need them for whatever reason.
Rhoden made this her mission in 2018 when a teacher walked in asking for help finding a new pair of shoes for a student. She happened to have one pair at the time. They were in his size.
“I’ll never forget it. He looked up at me with big brown eyes and said you mean I get to keep them?" Rhoden remembers. "So I knew that that’s what I needed to do…”
The reason why she does this is because of her son. She was searching for a way to honor his life when this happened so she named her mission "Shoes From Brayden".
“Brayden was a very energetic….” Rhoden tries to talk, but she gets choked up every time. Her heart is still breaking from losing her son in 2014.
Brayden died from a rattlesnake bite at the age of 4. The community remembers his spirit through these continuous acts of kindness.
“Every pair of shoes that I give out, it mends my heart for sure," she says.
“The Lord is still working through all of this through Brayden and helping her," her mother Nita Crawford said.
“The healing on this is ongoing and always will be," said Rhoden's father Darrell Crawford.
There’s a number of reasons students may need her help with shoes.
“Sometimes students shoes they break. Maybe they stepped in a mud puddle at the bus stop or you know, there’s some type of issue where they just need a brand new pair of shoes," explained Kelly Horn, principal of Keller Intermediate.
But there’s only one reason why this all exists. These shoes are from Brayden.
If you would like to donate, you can drop shoes off at any school in Baker County.
Baker County is also opening up a new school next year which will be their first new school in about 20 years. Rhoden will be moving into a new clinic with a custom built closet to store even more donations.