Nicholas Lowinger's Bar Mitzvah project is now a robust nonprofit

In 2010, Cranston native Nicholas Lowinger rocked the charity world, and delighted the media, with his nonprofit Gotta Have Sole Foundation, which provides homeless children with new shoes. Lowinger was only 13 at the time, and Gotta Have Sole began as a Bar Mitzvah service project.

The foundation has grown considerably since then, with 210 shelter partners and an all-time total of 13,000 volunteers. Most importantly, the foundation has provided footwear to more than 109,000 children from every state in the country.

Lowinger is now 24 and a graduate of New York University. He splits his time between an apartment in New York and his family home in Rhode Island. He continues to serve as CEO of Gotta Have Sole, just as he has since he was a teenager.

As his charity celebrates its 13th anniversary, we chatted with Lowinger about Gotta Have Sole and his plans for the future.

I can’t imagine being a teenager and having such a big responsibility. Did you ever consider dusting off your hands and moving on from Gotta Have Sole?

There was always that struggle for balance. It’s hard enough being a teenager, trying to balance school and extracurriculars, sports, everything else. On my end, I was very fortunate that I had a family that was incredibly supportive of my work, so when I had exams or pressing things that were integral to my childhood development, my parents were able to step in. My mom, in particular, still dedicates a ton of time. We’re kind of a two-person tag-team, running the nonprofit.

Tell us about college.

I studied marketing and sustainable business at NYU’s Stern School of Business. I was convinced at that time that I was going to do finance.  It was like a top-five finance school in the country, so why wouldn’t I try that? But it’s a very soul-sucking industry.

I was heavily involved in entrepreneurial programming at NYU. I ended up being the co-chair of the Entrepreneurs Festival; it’s a big, nationally recognized festival, where people come in from all over the country.

It was cool being on the side of supporting entrepreneurs, but I sort of realized how much I missed entrepreneurship. I realized that finance wasn’t for me, and I figured out I was sort of good at marketing. I’d sort of been marketing my nonprofit for a decade at that point, and I didn’t even realize all the skills I’d learned doing that.

And looking into the sustainability element, figuring out a way to both prioritize environmental sustainability and the much-less-recognized social sustainability, I really found a way to take my personal passions – from my entire childhood – and find a way to apply that to what I was studying.

And conversely, after college, find a way to apply what I had studied to the business I’m growing.

I’ve been able to have this whole new framework to look at what I do and how we can grow, and running [Gotta Have Sole] as a proper organization, and really taking the steps to take it from what was an incredible service project and small nonprofit to the heights that I know we can achieve.

It was certainly a journey, getting back to that point. I almost feel like I had to walk away for a little bit to then come back with a new vigor.

How was the transition from Rhode Island to New York City?

I love New York. It’s an incredible city. It was a nice shift, for sure.

I love Rhode Island too. Gotta Have Sole is still based in Rhode Island. It’s always refreshing to leave the hustle-bustle city environment and keep myself grounded [in Rhode Island].

As a tennis player, it’s a lot harder to find courts to play on [in New York]!

I’m an only child, so it’s very easy to go home and just be with my whole family. But as I take all these leaps with the organization, being around people who are constantly moving forward definitely pushes me towards doing the same.

How did COVID affect your personal and professional life?

I graduated in May of 2020. The pandemic years had a pretty massive impact, both on the organization and on me.

In 2018, we [Gotta Have Sole] developed what we called the College Ambassador Program. That essentially was engaging college students to teach an empowerment curriculum that my mom developed to teach social-emotional learning. We also consulted with educators in Rhode Island to get their input and make sure we were tapping into all the right focus areas. We were running this in shelters in the state, with students from a multitude of universities. However, when the pandemic hit, we weren’t able to go in and teach the lessons in person anymore.

We had to find a way to pivot, so we developed an ‘a la carte’ version of our curriculum. We trained and worked with shelter advocates, so they could teach an abridged version of our curriculum, still covering all the major focus points.

On the flip side of that, though, poverty skyrocketed during the pandemic. Homelessness skyrocketed. A lot of the shelters we were partnering with were doubling, tripling their orders. We’re trying actively to build a bigger volunteer network that can continue to support what we’re doing, because the demand is crazy.

I hate that. I wish we didn’t need to exist. I wish that there wasn’t homelessness. I wish every kid had their own pair of shoes and that it wasn’t a problem for them to get to school. But it is, and because of that, I’m really happy that we’re at least there to serve that need.

And I get to love what I do for a living. I have so many friends who hate what they’re doing, who are constantly trying to find new jobs. And here I am. It’s work, but I know the impact that I’m making, and it’s such a big part of me that I can’t imagine not doing it. I’m so lucky to be in a position where I can say that.

Given your interest in entrepreneurialism, do you think about future startups?

I’ve always wanted to start a footwear company that could support the charity. That was the thing I had to put on pause during the pandemic. As Gotta Have Sole has evolved, I need to build the charity to be at a certain place, where it’s worth supporting, and I can invest some of my other time into another program. But that’s always been a dream of mine.

The state of business right now is really interesting. We’ve seen the shift from strictly profit-driven businesses to finding a way for businesses to be sustainable and make money – not like, make money and happen to be sustainable. I think the opportunity is definitely there for me.

To learn more about Gotta Have Sole and to make a donation, go to GottaHaveSole.org.

ROBERT ISENBERG (risenberg@jewishallianceri.org) is the multimedia producer for the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and a writer for Jewish Rhode Island.