By Richard Bammer

You cannot keep a bright outlook on life while wearing ill-fitting shoes. They hurt your feet.

Rose Kennedy knew this when she visited Fairview Elementary School in December 2012, when she first learned that many of the low-income children at the First Street campus in Fairfield were coming to class in hand-me-down shoes, most them too small or too big, literally rubbing their wearers the wrong way, and often over socks with holes.

And some of those children, most receiving free or reduced-cost school meals under federal guidelines, had far more serious problems, too, among them being homeless or as members of families facing home foreclosure. For them, comfortable shoes were, understandably, not a priority.

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