Giving Shoes A New Home
There is a woman. She walks around the block where I work. Every day. Sometimes I see her in the morning; other times, as I walk to my car at dusk. She is old…dirty…somber…quiet. Her face and hands are weathered from a life of difficult choices and hard times and trouble she couldn’t have foreseen when she was young.
This woman carries a backpack and looks for food and bottles in the trash cans. Her hair is short, cut hastily, possibly at her own hand? Her clothes are caked with the reality of her day. On her feet…
…are a pair of running shoes.
The shoes are at least two sizes too big for her small frame and feet. I don’t understand how she doesn’t walk right out of them. They are broken, literally falling apart at the seams, laces – what is left of them - dragging behind her steps.
I see her bare toes through the material.
Across the nation, homelessness is a problem. With so many contributing factors and unique situations, I understand that a comprehensive solution isn’t easily found.
But I got to thinking…
And I came across two organizations that are doing really good things for those less fortunate than us. Soles4Souls has a simple concept: They procure shoes and get them to those in need. And for years, not only has The Salt Lake Running Company collected and distributed used running shoes at a local level, but they have also been shipping them to central Mexico to a town called Casas Grandes (Read their amazing story HERE).
We’re runners, which means we go through several pairs of shoes over the course of a year. My question to you is: Then what?
Kelly is a runner trying to live more of her life on a bike. She tweets as @lovingtherun and is racing for others as she trains for her second marathon.
