When Harper John Ford kicked off his footy boots after the final game last season, he did not expect they would be living a new life on someone else's feet thousands of kilometres north.
The Year 10 Mercy College student in Mackay is typical of one of the hundreds who donated their footy boots to the Boot It Up challenge last year, with the shoes now adorning the feet of Hope Vale's Indigenous footy players.
Harper is a Torres Strait Islander boy himself and says his family travels nearly yearly to remote communities in the north.
"You go up there, and you can see a lot of the community is disadvantaged, which is sad to see," Harper said.
The initiative was put together by Mackay-based Hunters, an organisation founded by Kay Cora and her family for their brother Israel Cora.
Ms Cora came to Mercy College on Wednesday to thank the students for their donations and show photos of how the student's donations were received.
Harper said he loved being able to see his boots go to someone new and bring so much joy.
'It's pretty good to see that they have something to look forward to, they enjoy footy, and hopefully, they can do it for a while," he said.
"They could go be something big some day. You never know."
Ms Cora said she was thrilled to be able to show Mercy College students the impact of their support.
"We know there are a lot of avid players that can't play in [remote] communities because they don't have footy boots," Ms Cora said.
Her organisation found out that some of the rugby league junior clubs were not able to function properly because of the issue.
"Football carnivals would be held in Cooktown," Ms Cora said.
She said nearly the entire 1,000 population of Hope Vale were present when they gave out the boots.
"[Hope Vale] children turned up to the presentation with no shoes or shirts and the smiles on their faces were priceless as they left with a new pair of shoes and Hunters shirts," Ms Cora said.
Ms Cora said she was proud of what Hunters, a group made in her late brother Israel Cora's memory, had been able to accomplish.
"We never thought Hunters, starting from a small rugby league team, would turn into something so amazing that has achieved all the amazing success, including sharing Aboriginal culture," Ms Cora said.
The group organised the Indigenous dance troupe Tchundal Malarto to visit Mercy College and St Mary's Catholic Primary School South Mackay to thank them for their donations and share with them some indigenous culture.
The initiative will return again this year and supply boots to Indigenous communities in Woorabinda.
