40 Days and 40 Ways ...(to help) #4: SHOES

Yep. Shoes. I'm not kidding. Just by going through your closet you can help people. So you can actually mingle your Lent project (if you are choosing to do these blog suggestions for Lent) with your Spring cleaning!! BAMSES!!

Shoes may not seem like a big way to help, but put yourself in a hurricane survivor's shoes (no pun intended :) ). You've just survived a HURRICANE, but you've lost everything you have and there is debris scattered everywhere. There's broken glass and plastics everywhere, not to mention the sewer that has now overflowed into to the street. What would you do if you had no shoes??

Now are you wondering how to help?

Here's how:

1st: Go through your closet and pick out all the shoes you don't wear. All of them. Even the ratty, old, no-one-would-ever-stick-their-foot-in-this-nasty-old-shoe shoes.

2nd: Organize them into two piles: The somebody-might-wear-this pile and the aforementioned nasty, falling apart pile.

3rd: Check out this site: soles4souls.org - This is a site I read about back in my college days and have sent shoes to a few times. They are a Nashville-based group that collects used shoes to send to those in need. They've sent gently worn shoes to over 125 countries!! They'll even accept that one shoe with the lost match!!

And this one: http://www.nikereuseashoe.com/faqs - This site is for those running shoes (or any athletic shoe) that you have worn out. Nike recycles them and turns them into running tracks, tennis courts, playground equipment, etc.

Both sites have drop-off centers (you can search for them on their websites) as well as the capability to mail them in! So grab your family, and bury yourself in your closet for an hour. See just how many people you can help today!!