The cartoon caption on a child’s drawing hanging in the
California Shoe Inn
&
amp; Pedorthics Shop in Morgan Hill, owned by Gill Majko and
fianc
ée Annette Duarte, asks
”
Got Shoes?
”
The cartoon caption on a child’s drawing hanging in the California Shoe Inn & Pedorthics Shop in Morgan Hill, owned by Gill Majko and fiancée Annette Duarte, asks “Got Shoes?”
Majko has found his calling in life as he fits shoes to people rather than people fitting themselves into shoes. “Eighty percent of women are walking around in shoes that are the wrong size for their feet,” he said as he described the kind of painful shoes that many people wear for fashion’s sake. “If you want a foot shaped like an ice cream cone, wear a shoe that forces your foot into the shape of an ice cream cone.”
Majko is certified in Pedorthics, which is the art concerned with the design, manufacture, fit, and modification of shoes. When he first began working in the business, he witnessed how life-changing the right shoes could be for someone. “A woman came in all bent over, walking very badly,” he said. “But after we fitted her with the right shoes, she came back three weeks later and was walking erect and was free from pain.” Seeing the difference shoes had made for this client was the clincher for Majko to make the shoe business his own.
“I have shoes and I’m not afraid to use them,” he said as he brandished a shoe in one hand and a Brannock Device in the other. “There are three important measurements; feet are three-dimensional, not one-dimensional.” He puts my foot into the Brannock Device to take arch, linear, and girth measurements.
“No one gives this kind of service anymore,” I remark.
“That’s right” he said. “Most shoe stores don’t even know how to properly measure a foot anymore.” When he fits a person with the right shoes, he knows the satisfaction of stopping bunions, preventing various foot and back problems, and sometimes even making it possible for someone to continue walking rather than becoming wheelchair-bound.
Not all of his stories have such happy outcomes. He once worked with a customer who had lost part of his foot and could only stand to wear shoes for 20-minute increments before he was in agony. With Majko’s custom-made shoe, this man could wear shoes without pain for six hours at a time.
Even though the shoe was attractive, when the man’s wife saw that it wasn’t the latest fashion, she let him know she didn’t like how the shoe looked. The man sadly said he couldn’t take the shoes after all. Majko took back the shoes he had worked so hard to customize and refunded the money. “Someday that man will be in a wheelchair,” he shook his head sadly. “I wonder how fashionable his wife is going to feel then?”
Now Majko has taken his passion to help people those who need it most by starting a grassroots campaign to get shoes to the homeless.
“Everybody has shoes they don’t wear out,” he said. “Donating them is better than tossing them into a landfill.”
He has altered many shoes to fit clients. “It is one of the best ways you can help a homeless person,” he said. “A well-fitting pair of shoes is the first step in improving the overall quality of life for someone homeless.”
Shoe donations go directly to homeless shelters here and in the South County area. Gently used shoes as well as brand new shoes are accepted.
To donate to the “Shoes for the Shoeless” program, The Shoe Inn is located at 421 Vineyard Town Center (near Nob Hill Shopping/Las Palmas Restaurant); or contact Gill Majko at 782-8365.
