Genius. The kids' shoes that grow 5 sizes in 5 years.

Any parent will tell you that kids outgrow their shoes almost instantly.

And while your kids can count on a replacement pair of mary-janes for the new school year, 300 million kids across the globe don’t have shoes at all — and countless more have shoes that don’t fit.

As a result, they are exposed to  soil-transmitted parasites and diseases, which in turn cause them to miss school and suffer with painful conditions that they don’t have medical care to address.

When US volunteer Kenton Lee spotted a small girl wearing shoes too small for her little feet on a street in Nairobi, he had an thought: “Wouldn’t it be great if there was a shoe that could expand – so that kids always had a pair of shoes that fit?”

He went on to help develop The Shoe That Grows – a pair of adjustable show that “grows” five sizes in five years,  to allow children in developing nations to grow up without having to go barefoot.

While you can buy yourself a pair for US$30, you can also buy larger packages of the shoes at discounted rates (for example, 100 pairs for US$12 a pair).

Those packages can then be shipped to impoverished regions across the globe in countries including Haiti, Ghana, Kenya or Ecuador – via Because International’s partner organisations (some of which are faith-based; you can see the list here).

Lee and his colleagues originally crowdfunded $8000 to create a prototype of the shoe – and now, the organisation is also calling out for donations to produce its next batch of shoes.

They’re up to just over $42,000, but still have several thousand dollars to raise to ensure their $50,000 target is met.

We think it’s a brilliant idea.

You can donate to the project via this crowdfunding page or find out more at The Shoe That Grows’ website.