The mission of “Cleats to Kids” is to collect used cleats and sneakers and ship them to kids in Haiti that have no shoes. Amanda’s original goal was to collect and distribute 300 pairs of cleats and sneakers, but to her surprise, she surpassed that goal in just 6 months! She decided to keep on going, and has now collected and distributed more than 800 pairs of shoes to Haitians in need.

The 15-year-old is proud of her project and she says “choosing to matter” has opened her eyes to the world. People are living in poverty and she had never helped. This project made her discover that one person can start a chain reaction, and one person can change the world.

While in London celebrating her grand prize win, Amanda enjoyed all the great sights with the Champions of Play crew and had her reflective blog posts published in Huffington Post!

At home, Amanda is an “A” student attending Providence Catholic High School. She participates in the Science Club, Math Club, Art Club, and will be playing on the PCHS Celtics soccer team this spring. She has many pets including her guinea pig “Charlie” who joins a menagerie of three dogs (two Whippets “Max”/”Gus” and a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel “Lady”) and two parrots (“Izzy” and “Bella”.)

Since she’s played soccer since age five, Amanda is obviously excited to go back to Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy for her fourth year this year — she says the chicken parmesan there is to die for!