Surrounded by his best friends after a fun-filled training session in the far-western NSW town of Wilcannia, coach Darren "Horse" Whyman slowly opened a shoebox, and in it, appeared a fluorescent pair of yellow Nike football boots.

Nicko was shocked. He could not fathom how or why this had happened to him.

With a 200-kilometre drive to the nearest store to buy football boots, let alone to buy anything other than groceries, for a pair of boots to fall into his lap, Nicko was ecstatic.

"This is the best day ever," Nicko said to us quietly when his football teammates had finally, after 10 minutes, left his side.

For the next 24 hours, we were asked incessantly whether we were Santa's elves and if we had any more boots stored away in our magical knapsack to hand out to kids in a town where football boots are a luxury item.

Boots for Kids is a campaign asking Fairfax Media readers to donate footy boots at the end of the season, so we can get them to indigenous kids in rural and remote areas who have none.

Readers can donate their children's boots, their own, or buy a pair and deposit the boots in bins located in Coles supermarkets across NSW and Victoria from Monday. They will be collected by Linfox and, after being cleaned up and paired with some socks, trucked to the communities in need.

Last year when the campaign launched in Victoria alone, almost 5000 pairs of boots were donated and trucked to four different communities – Gunbalanya in East Arnhem Land, Bayulu near Fitzroy Crossing in the Pilbara, Wadeye south of Darwin, and Northam east of Perth.

As the campaign spreads from its roots in Victoria to NSW, now is the perfect time to put in perspective how much children from remote areas will benefit from second-hand football boots for their Australian rules, league, union and football matches on weekends.

"I know that sometimes during football because there’s a number of games they share their boots," Wilcannia Central School principal Sandra Bradley said. "Other kids wouldn’t put up with that in other areas, I know, but it’s what these kids are used to."

Sport needn't be played without shoes. This is your chance to give these kids the opportunity.

Coles managing director John Durkan hopes that with this year’s inclusion of NSW, Boots for Kids will triple the number of communities to benefit.

“Boots for Kids was received extremely well by Victorians during its inaugural year, and now we are calling on people from across NSW to come on board and join the team effort,” Mr Durkan said.

The Sydney Morning Herald's editor-in-chief, Darren Goodsir, said: ''The Herald is delighted to be joining the Boots for Kids campaign this year and giving children  in remote NSW communities the chance to shine in their chosen football code. I am sure our readers can match their Victorian counterparts.''

Find out more about the campaign at smh.com.au/bootsforkids

Follow the campaign on Twitter at  #bootsforkids