A wave of national protests calling for gun control is scheduled to take place on Saturday and supporters are scrambling to buy green-coloured Converse trainers due to their connection to a recent victim of a school shooting.
The first March for Our Lives took place in March 2018 after a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed.
The protest, organised by pupils who survived the shooting, brought millions of Americans across the country to the streets in a protest of the country's lax gun laws.
At a recent White House briefing, actor Matthew McConaughey tearfully spoke about 10-year-old Maite Yuleana Rodriguez, who was killed during the attack on her primary school in Uvalde, Texas.
“Maite wore green high-top Converse with a heart she had hand drawn on the right toe, because they represented her love of nature,” he said, as his wife, Camila, held the pair of trainers on her lap.
“These are the same green Converse on her feet that turned out to be the only clear evidence that could identify her after the shooting.”
“We searched online and called several Converse outlets as well as Journey’s shoe stores,” Cheyenne, a resident of Atlanta, Georgia, told The National.
People supporting gun safety measures and activists planning to participate in Saturday's gatherings are searching for green Converse trainers to honour Maite.
“All the outlets were sold out in-person and online and only three of the four stores in Atlanta had pairs available.”
The trainers are sold out on the official Converse website.
David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland high school shooting and one of the founders of March for Our Lives, tweeted a protest sign showing green Converse like Maite's, with the words: “We march for those who can't.”
“There’s been a run on green Converse all week,” a store employee at Journey’s at Cumberland Mall in Atlanta told The National.
“I think it has something to do with the mass shooting in Texas.”
A Seattle, Washington, Journey’s store location said it had sold 22 pairs since opening its doors on Friday.
The 2018 march was attended by politicians and celebrities such as Sir Paul McCartney, James Franco, Laura Dern, Amy Schumer and then-senator Kamala Harris.
Saturday's march will take place in more than 300 US cities.
