What’s happening: Local nonprofit SoGiv is partnering with the Stax Music Academy on a new shoe featuring iconic Stax Records imagery, and all the while raising funds to benefit the nonprofit music academy. Pre-orders for the limited edition sneaker are currently open with the shoe itself being ready come March 2024.
What it is: The new Stax shoe from SoGiv comes in red with the Stax name emblazoned across the top of the right shoe, fashioned and inspired by the only remaining original feature left at the Stax Museum: its outside ceramic tile wall. The left shoetop features the music for “Wonderful” by legendary Stax recording artist Issac Hayes. Other design highlights include piano keys, Stax Music Academy logos, and more.
How to get it: Each pair of shoes costs $150, with sales benefiting the Stax Music Academy. The Stax shoe becomes available in March 2024, and pre-orders for the limited edition sneaker set
are currently available online.
About the shoemaker: SoGiv is a Memphis nonprofit founded in 2011 by Edward Bogard, a native Memphian and graduate of Savannah College of Arts in Savannah, Georgia. The nonprofit shoe design company raises funds for nonprofits and special causes through their unique partnerships and shoe sales.
As Bogard told High Ground contributor Reginald Johnson in August 2022, “I always wanted to come back [to Memphis] and create something amazing. After not being able to get a job at Nike, I just so happened to birth the first non-profit shoe design company. That experience with Nike saying “No” so many times definitely fueled my passion. The name SoGiv was derived from the slogan, ‘Every pair SOld, we GIVe,’ taking the SO- out of sold and GIV- out of give. It is an Awareness Shoe Company, which has never been done — we just provided over 13,000 meals, to date, in partnership with Mid-South Food Bank to eradicate hunger.”
Read our full interview with Edward Bogard
on High Ground News.
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