Stephanie Blozy made Fleet Feet in West Hartford into more than a running store

WEST HARTFORD – In 2010, a devastating earthquake hit Haiti and Stephanie Blozy watched on TV as survivors climbed over wreckage and noticed that many people had no shoes.

So Blozy, the co-owner of Fleet Feet running store in West Hartford, decided she would collect 500 pairs of shoes and ship them to Haiti. She put the word out, people started donating shoes and quickly, she had 5,000 pairs – which was great, except the cost to ship all those shoes to Haiti was prohibitive.

Blozy, who lives in Bloomfield, found an organization in Alabama with a container ship going to Haiti. If she could get the shoes there, the organization would deliver them. A local radio station personality she knew stepped up; the radio station paid for a truck and two drivers and plane tickets for them back from Alabama.

Which was also great, except then she had to sort 5,000 pairs of shoes, match them up and pack them. She thought it would take all day. She put the word out again.

“Over 100 people showed up,” Blozy said. “A local bakery made this cake out of cupcakes, it was in the shape of a truck and it said, ‘Operation Inspire.’ In less than an hour, we had all the shoes packed up.

“It was a moment for me, like, ‘If you build it, they will come. If you offer something like – people have a hard time sometimes figuring out what to do – but they’re more than happy to do it, once you have something for them to do.

“That was the first realization that that’s my job – I need to create that.”

And in that fashion, Blozy and her sister Carrie, who bought the store with her in 2008, created a place that was more than a place to buy shoes. It’s been a gathering spot for fun runs. It’s been a training hub for people learning how to run their first road race.

There are kids running programs, social justice runs, fundraising runs. The store has helped donate shoes to kids in Hartford and work boots to homeless people. It sponsors the Little Manchester Road Race, where 1,000 kids run a few days before the big race. When big-name runners came to town – Bill Rodgers, Meb Keflezighi, Deena Kastor – there was a good chance you could find them at Fleet Feet, doing fun runs, signing autographs.

So when the word went out that the Blozys were selling the store, there was some concern. But Fernanda Jacobs, the store’s general manager, and her husband David are buying the store and said they plan to carry on the tradition of community service.

Stephanie Blozy, 51, said it was time. Sunday is her last day.

“Running a business is exhausting,” Blozy said. “COVID was stressful as all get out. We had the supply chain issues last year.

“Fernanda and Dave, their dream was to open a Fleet Feet store, so they told me, ‘When you’re ready to sell, we’ll buy your store.’”

Blozy, who is the face of the store, plans to be around for a year, helping organize the store’s events and programs. Her sister, who deals with the operational aspect of the business, will be working with Fleet Feet’s national corporation.

When tragedy struck – or people needed help somewhere – there was usually an event at the store. There have been Black Lives Matter runs, runs for the Boston Marathon bombing victims, Sandy Hook runs. The store held self-defense classes after a female runner was raped in West Hartford. Blozy also went to court in support of the victim.

Before she bought the store with her sister in 2008, Blozy was a meteorologist.

“As a meteorologist, I would always say the way a raindrop is formed is that a piece of dust flies up in the air and the water droplets lob onto it and when it gets too heavy, it falls to the earth,” she said. “I feel like Fleet Feet is that particle of dust; we’re up there and we invite people to be a part of us and we make something even bigger.”

Blozy, who grew up in Cincinnati, started running when she was 5. Her father became a runner during the 70s running boom and his kids followed. Blozy ran in high school but decided that running in college was too much. In 1995, she was diagnosed with lupus and was told not to run.

“At this time, my brother, sister and dad were all running marathons together,” Blozy said. “I was insanely jealous. It lasted 5-6 years.

“One day my sister was doing research, it said running was good for people with chronic diseases. I found a new rheumatologist who said exercise was OK. I started exercising and feeling better. I asked, ‘Can I run a marathon?’”

The answer was yes. Blozy ran Marine Corps Marathon in 2002 and it changed her life. She wanted people to understand that exercise could make them feel better. One New Year’s Eve, she and her sister talked about owning a running store. Blozy went back to school to get a masters in exercise science; her sister got an MBA. Their parents had moved to West Hartford and the Fleet Feet in town was for sale.

“I felt sick all the time and running helped drive my lupus into remission,” Blozy said. “It was amazing. I wanted to tell the world and inspire people.

“I made a new motto when I took over the store: ‘We’re more than a shoe store, we’re a starting line.’ My favorite part was always not just selling things in the store but making relationships with the community and doing good and trying to inspire people. If you can have them have a healthy relationship with exercise, they’re going to be more likely to do it.”

She learned that when tragedy occurred, runners wanted to do something.

“After the Boston Marathon bombing, we did this run, half mile from the store – we went down a street, turned, down another street, turned,” she said. “We dedicated each part of the street – one to the runners, one to the first responders, one to the families and one to the spectators. Almost 400 people showed up. We raised money for One Fund Boston. We ran in silence and that was really cool.”

The store had a “Run Towards Justice” on June 2, 2020 with participants urged to run in silence while “focusing on their breath, the breath that gives us life. The breath that people like George Floyd and Eric Garner can no longer take.”

“When there’s unrest in the world, people want to gather and be together,” Blozy said.

“The West Hartford police showed up and I was like, ‘Oh man, I didn’t get permission to do the event,’ and they were like, ‘Hey, can we have a car that leads the runners? And the rest of us run with you guys?’”

This type of community outreach will continue with the Jacobs, who are both runners.

“We wanted to carry on your tradition,” David Jacobs told Blozy. “‘Cause it’s damn good work.”