This past fall, Matt Paisley launched a shoe repair program at Colorado's Thunder Ridge high school, with nearly two dozen students taking the plunge and immediately being drawn into the program, skill development, and practical hands-on cobbling work.

I had Matt lay out a blueprint for how he navigated making the shoe repair program happen, and the curriculum he’s been teaching in the first, legitimately monumental go-round.

The fact that Matt’s program exists is a wonderful and inspiring story on its own—as is all the remarkable help that’s been offered by the repair and quality footwear community. But potential for Matt’s idea and approach to spread to other schools is what makes this, in my humble estimation, one of the most important episodes we’ve ever published.

Here’s Matt Paisley, the guy who lit the spark that just might fix a broken shoe repair pipeline, on the Shoecast.

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