Igor Vovkivinskiy, the 7’8 man from Rochester, Minn. who made headlines earlier this year for raising $32,000 for custom-made shoes, will receive a pair from Reebok, gratis.
Vovkivinskiy, 29, tugged at people’s heartstrings when he shared his story of foot misery -- hadn’t had a new pair of shoes in six years. Ill-fitting footwear caused his feet to become deformed and infected.
Worst of all, he had no decent shoes to get him through the rough Minnesota winters.
He did some investigative work and discovered that he could get perfect fitting shoes -- for $16,000.
The steep price included laser scans, molds and labor. But once all that was done, future pairs would cost around $200 each.
Desperate, he started a fundraising effort on his Facebook page and was stunned when the money started pouring in.
Last week, Reebok stepped in and offered to fly Vovkivinskiy out to its Canton, Mass. headquarters to get fitted for brand new shoes.
Shoe engineers scanned, tested and measured Vovkivinskiy’s feet while designers worked with him on what he wanted the shoes to look like, according to the ‘Today’ show.
“When Igor came to us and we heard his story, we were more than happy to completely fund the creation of his footwear,” Reebok’s chief marketing officer Matt O’Toole said in a statement released to Today.com. “It is our goal to make fitness accessible to everyone.”
Vovkivinskiy has struggled with his height since he was a little boy.
He was already 6’ at age six when he and his mother emigrated to the US from Ukraine in order to get her son better health care.
The Mayo Clinic reportedly attempted to remove a tumor in his pituitary gland was responsible for his nonstop growing.
The tumor was too far imbedded to be fully extracted.
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