Tires and Treads Community Project provides clothes and shoes to children in need across the county

Fran Morris, Founder of Tires and Treads, says her passion for serving the less privileged resulted from her childhood, a random social media post, and the encouragement from regular customers at her waitress job.

Growing up, Morris often had clothes from garage sales at the homes of children she attended school with, and when she saw a local elementary school teacher’s social media post ten years ago asking for shoes for students whose shoes were so tight that they had difficulty walking, that hit home for her.

“That was my upbringing,” Morris says. “I grew up with very little, and always felt invisible.”

While working as a waitress on one particular evening, Morris shared her ideas to help with some regular customers while waiting tables, and to her surprise, several of them returned later with boxes of children’s shoes.

“The more people who heard my heart, the more people wanted to help,” she says. 

She then began collecting boots, shoes, socks, underclothes, coats, hats, and gloves inside her home, and in 2016, the Tires and Treads Community Project began.

Currently, the organization partners with 14 St. Clair County elementary schools to provide items for their clothing cabinets. When staff see any child in need, regardless of circumstances, they discreetly bring them to the closet.

Whenever a specific need becomes known, either through a school counselor or faculty member, Morris posts to the organization’s Facebook page, which has nearly 4,000 followers. Volunteers will bring those items to Morris, where they’ll be dropped off at any participating school within 48 hours.

The nonprofit also organizes holiday clothing drives and eight community car shows throughout the year to help raise funds and benefit the local schools.

“Our organization goes about our mission quietly, but doing a whole lot of good all over the county,” she says.

Their next car show in St. Clair County will be on June 8 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Restoration Christian Community Church located at 3201 Gratiot Ave in Port Huron.