Our Story

Every new business has their ‘Aha’ moment. For Made with Love Sneakers, it was in the late hours of the night on TikTok, after countless hours of scrolling. It was January 2021, and month 11 of the COVID-19 pandemic when I came across a video of someone customizing their own Air Force 1s. I thought to myself, hey, that would be so fun to do. Fast forward 4 days later and the first Made with Love pair of shoes were created, or otherwise known as ‘50 Shades of Beige.’ Like any other person, I naturally posted it on my Instagram.  What I wasn’t expecting was the flood of DMs (unfortunately, none of which were my crushes) that I received shortly after posting. All of the DMs I received asked about ways that I could customize a personalized pair for them and it was in this instance I knew... this was my ‘Aha’ moment. 

Since philanthropy has always been an integral part of my life, I was eager to combine this new hobby with a charitable cause. I made the decision to donate all proceeds from the shoe sales to Toronto’s Centre of Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) to aid in the promotion of mental health. I can speak for many when I say that 2020 was an absolute $&^! year so I knew mental health support was needed now more than ever. 

My goal was to raise $10,000 CAD by the end of 2021. Thanks to all the lovers (a.k.a. Made with Love customers) and the matching efforts from Salesforce and CAMH, to date, we have raised over $100,000 for mental health. I’d also like to shoutout, Carly Scott and Magda Reckendrees who have joined the Made With Love team and have been a tremendous helping hand to reaching our goal. 

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Made with Love is a company that strives to bring premium, personalized, and one of a kind products to people, while helping others through philanthropic contributions. Every single shoe is hand painted with the highest quality materials and made with LOTS of love. 

[Made] with love, 

Alana Picov

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Update as of May 2023: Thank you so much for your support. We are beyond excited to see what the years ahead bring. Moving forward, Made with Love will be changing its model to a donate a portion of proceeds rather than 100% of your order to mental health. We are so excited to see the impact we can continue to make!