A Shoe In

In my quest to bring a charity component to all social gatherings, first described here, I was faced with finding just the right fit for a recent house party. It was a celebration of new jobs, a birthday and we were expecting about 75 people. I wanted to make it fun and easy for people and did a little research and decided to do a shoe drive. In the evite with all the other information we included a paragraph on our idea:

So join us, and please bring a pair of new, newish or old sneakers with you. Help us keep one of our New Year's Resolutions that all social gatherings be GOOD! Shoes are going to be donated to One World Running and we will take care of shipping. New and "near-new," will be sent to Kenya for people without shoes and the beat up ones will be sent to Nike in Beaverton, Ore., through Boulder's Eco-Cycle program, to be ground up and made into running tracks and playgrounds through the Reuse-a-Shoe program.

One World Running does shoe drops around the world once a month. This month their drop is in Nicaragua, next month Kenya (where I asked my shipment to go), the following Vietnam, then New Orleans. As for those old and dirty shoes you would probably just throw out? Here in LA, it's so easy, I could just drop them off at Niketown - or for those elsewhere you can send them to Nike's Reuse a Shoe Program in Oregon - either way, it doesn't matter where the shoe is from, they'll take them all and what a great way to find an alternative use for your shoes outside a landfill.