Andover teen who went viral will distribute shoes from Kim Kardashian West

Amelia Flores, a 17-year-old Andover High School student, gained viral Internet attention in December when Kim Kardashian West tweeted that she and Kanye West would donate 1,000 pairs of shoes to Flores’ local Soles4Souls shoe drive.

Kardashian West followed through on her promise and donated 1,000 pairs of Adidas and Kardashian Kollection shoes.

On Friday, Flores will hand out 300 pairs of Adidas shoes to students at Jardine Middle School.

Flores originally hoped to collect 2,000 pairs from donation sites that she set up around Andover.

She then bumped the goal to 25,000 pairs when donations flooded in from her Kardashian-level attention.

Her shoe drive went toward Soles4Souls, an international nonprofit that donates shoes to people in need because of economic hardship or environmental disaster.

She first became interested in helping Soles4Souls because the organization helped her extended family in New Orleans, La., during Hurricane Katrina.

The shoes donated from Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West were divided for distribution in Los Angeles, Calif.; New Orleans and Wichita.

Flores said she chose Jardine because she previously volunteered in the community near Jardine through her church, Chapel Hill United Methodist Church.

“It’s really important to me,” she said about the community.

How it happened

Flores’ story went viral when Kardashian West heard about the drive on a syndicate show called Dish Nation and posted six tweets to her 37 million followers about the drive.

Dish Nation quoted an article from The Eagle during a segment called “Wichita Week” while country singer Garth Brooks was in town.

At the time, Flores was storing nearly 1,000 pairs of donated shoes in her room.

But the donations soon skyrocketed after Kardashian West’s tweets. Flores appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and received interview requests from national outlets including “Access Hollywood,” the Huffington Post, the New York Daily News and the BBC.

Stardom continues

On Tuesday, Flores flies to Las Vegas, Nev., with her dad to visit a shoe conference called FN Platform hosted by a fashion site called Magic Online.

She said she was disappointed she’ll miss a couple tests at school, but said she’s excited to visit Las Vegas because she’s never been before.

“My dad’s gonna show me where he proposed to my mom,” she said. “She laughed at him because she thought he was kidding,” she said, referring to her mom.

This story was originally published February 15, 2016 at 7:33 PM with the headline "Andover teen who went viral will distribute shoes from Kim Kardashian West."