According to the Business Leaders Task Force on Homeless report, “Home For Good”, there are 48,000 homeless on any given night in Los Angeles County.

I guess you could say we have 48,000 reasons to be focused on collecting shoes at this years Honda LA Marathon presented by K-Swiss.  With over 30,000 runners and 100,000 or more visiting the expo we hope to collect an incredible amount of shoes that will be donated to Union Rescue Mission.

Here’s how it breaks down:

San Fernando Valley – 3,618 homeless

West LA – 5.538 homeless

South Bay – 7,863 homeless

South LA – 8,514 homeless

East LA – 4,517 homeless

Central LA – 11,093 homeless

San Gabriel Valley – 3,924 homeless

Antelope Valley – 2,419

The time to donate is NOW. LA needs your shoes! Donate at LA Marathon this weekend! Here’s where.

Los Angeles is one of the greatest cities in the world. Let’s make sure we help take care of those calling it home, even if they don’t have one.

Thank you.

The Denver Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon and 1/2 was made special thanks to the great people from Crocs! Normally we hand out Give Your Sole branded foam flip flops to those who donate their race day shoes off their feet but I knew heading into this event we were running low on our supply.  Therefore, I reached out to Crocs in hopes of them providing us with some shoes we could offer in place of the flip flops as well as create some incentive for people to donate on race day.  Crocs graciously donated 100 pairs for us to give to the first 100 people who donated the shoes off their feet.  The great thing about it was many people expressed this was the first pair of Crocs they ever owned!

We ran out of Crocs pretty quick as you can imagine. Even though we ran out, we gave away what flip flops we did have to those who didn’t make it in time to be one of the lucky 100. Overall for the weekend we collected 425 pairs of shoes, 50 HUGE bags of clothes we collected from the start of the race and 4 pallets of water from the great people at Competitor Group.

Race day is not only filled with incredible memories of receiving shoes from people but it is also the day we give the shoes to those who we collected them for, in this case the Denver Rescue Mission.  The Rescue Mission has a program called the New Life Rehabilitation Program and had 23 men run the race.  After the race, it was many of these same men who ran the race that picked up the shoes and clothes to take back to their fellow men and women in need.

To think that many of these men ran with the very same people who donated their shoes, yet might never meet, is pretty inspiring.  The act of giving is commendable, the act of giving knowing you will never meet the recipient is to be applauded. Congratulations to all who ran, to all who gave and to all who received….for it was many who did all three.

When I heard about the Competitor Group bringing their Rock ‘n’ Roll race series to Denver for the Inaugural Denver Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon and 1/2 Marathon I was excited….for many reasons.  To start with, my Father-in-Law lives in Denver and my Sister-in-Law and her husband live in Boulder, instant volunteers!  More than that though, I had heard great things about the Denver Rescue Mission and was now going to have the opportunity to work with them.

The Denver Rescue Mission meets people at their physical and spiritual points of need with the goal of returning them to society as productive, self-sufficient citizens.  The Denver Rescue Mission operates five facilities throughout Metro Denver and Northern Colorado. Their goal has been the same for the past 118 years – to serve the needs of the poor and homeless through emergency services, rehabilitation, transitional and permanent housing, and community outreach.  Last year, the Denver Rescue Mission served 659,854 meals, provided 171,480 nights of shelter, provided 185 tons of clothing, and placed 253 families into permanent housing. The team from the mission shared some alarming facts with me:

On any given night, there are 11,061 homeless men, women and children in Metro Denver.  Of the over 11,061 homeless people in the Denver metro area, approximately:

• 46.5% are people in households with children

• 26.8% are children and teens

• 13.0% are veterans

• 44.5% are experiencing their first episode of homelessness

• 4.5%  are chronically homeless

When survey respondents were asked to indicate “all that apply” regarding reasons for their homelessness, the following were the top 10 reasons listed:

- Lost job 34.7%

- High housing costs (rent or mortgage) 31.2%

- Alcohol or substance abuse 29.5%

- Relationship or family breakup 19.1%

- Mental Illness 16.2%

- Eviction/Foreclosure 12.6%

- Illness 10.5%

- Domestic violence 9.9%

- Discharged from jail 8.0%

- Legal 8%

As I sit in the comforts of  my own home and type this post my heart breaks from a couple of these numbers really standing out.  The fact that roughly 47% are households with children and that 45% are experiencing their first episode of homeless is tragic. Obviously lack of finances or the loss of employment have played a large role in why many have found themselves in this situation.  This is all more the reason we need to collect as many pairs of shoes as possible.  By doing so we can lessen the burden of the mother whose children need shoes because their feet are growing so fast the shoes they have don’t fit. We can ease the pain of a father who is out of work and has to decide how to spend what money he has on either food or shoes for his family.  We can help those who know that winter is only days away along with the freezing cold.  Shoes for these people can mean survival.

Whether you are running the marathon or not, chances are you have shoes you can donate.  Make it this weekend and come donate them to us here.  Let’s make this inaugural race event one to remember not only because it takes place in one of the most beautiful locations in the country but because Denver came together and gave it their best, they gave it their hearts and they gave their shoes!

Chicago started like any other event; me recruiting basically my whole family as volunteers to help collect shoes from all the runners and participants at the Chicago Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon.  Also joining us for this event were Tom and Lindsey from New York.  The team was assembled and ready to go.  All we needed now were for the people to come through the expo and donate their shoes.  Odd thing was, the expo was strangely slow for us.  The slowest expo to date as a matter of fact. What we collected in two days we normally collect in a half a day.  Not all was lost and to better explain, let me back up a few days.

I landed in Chicago a week before the event feeling positive knowing how much Chicago loves running.  Even though Chicago loves running, I knew I had to get the word out about us being at the Chicago Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon in hopes of collecting as many pairs of shoes as possible for Breakthrough Urban Ministries.  What better way to get the word out, with no marketing budget, than good ‘ole social networking! The next few nights I was a Tweeting and Facebook crazed, non-profit peddling machine.  Anytime someone mentioned #RnRCHI on Twitter I was tweeting them.  Anytime someone posted something about the event on Facebook I was replying; all in hopes of getting the word out about donating their shoes.  I am constantly amazed by the connections that can be made from such valuable social networking tools.

Through using Twitter I was able to meet Jason and Molly Mesnick from The Bachelor.  They both showed immediate interest in what we were doing.  What a blessing it was to have them reach out to me and ask how they could help.  Not only did they start spreading the news to over 40k of their followers but they also offered to come work the booth for awhile on Saturday.  It was having them hang out with us at the booth and in hindsight, even though the expo was slow for us, I was glad because it gave me time to get to know Jason and Molly.  Each of them have tremendous hearts for helping others.  Jason even has his own non-profit called Project Parachute that focuses on helping single parents in America by providing childcare scholarships and establishing single parent support programs across the nation.  After spending a couple hours together with them and getting to know one another I’m sure we will be teaming up again in hopes of helping the lives of those in need.

Ending the day with only 125 pairs I wasn’t quite sure what to expect come race day and to be quite honest, I was disappointed.  That’s what’s nice about having such a supportive family and team.  They always know how to keep things positive and focus on what is being accomplished – Helping others. Whether we collect another 125 pairs on race day or one pair, the fact was, we had collected 125 pairs for people in Chicago who might not otherwise have any.

Race Day. 6 am. It’s quiet. People are gear checking their clothes across from our booth. The race begins. 8:30 am comes and all heck breaks loose! Within three hours we take in 350 pairs and run out of flip flops to give people. People were coming by the booth, tossing shoes behind us, to the sides of us, in piles! It was awesome!  Total count for three days – 475 Pairs!  The 2nd largest collection to date at one event for us.  The message was clear, our job is not to worry about when and where the shoes will come from, but to do our due diligence in the work and be ready when it happens.

After all, it was just one pair that made a difference to Gina, not 475.

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like. – Saint Augustine

Last week took us to Seattle for the Seattle Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon & 1/2 Marathon.  Seattle is a city I have a love for because of my wife calling it home. Many friends and family remain in the rainy city.  I had been looking forward to attending this event ever since we missed it’s inaugural race last year.

To begin with, I had an amazing group of friends who I met all on Twitter that were helping me promote we would be in Seattle.  My friend Ryan Hodgson from Team Up for Non-Profits introduced me to Debbie Whitlock who hosts a radio show in Seattle. Not only was Debbie kind enough to volunteer her time to work our booth but she also had me on her radio show. (listen here) Thanks again Debbie!  The stage was set and we were ready to collect shoes on behalf of the Seattle Union Gospel Mission.

Every event I can’t help but want to collect as many shoes possible.  This event was no different. The first day at the expo started out pretty slow until 6:30 pm when I got a call from a donor asking if I could meet her curbside to unload some shoes. As I approached her tailgate I was shocked! She had collected 6 HUGE garbage bags of shoes on her own. After hauling them inside I was off to an event hoping to network with people who I thought might be able to further our cause. I met some incredible people and made some great friends who I think will help us down the road. Only time will tell and that’s for another post.

After two days of collecting at the expo it was race day. I always enjoy race day because there is something breathtaking about people donating their shoes while facing sheer exhaustion. Even though their body is in turmoil their spirit still wants to give more and that is remarkable to me.

Luckily the Seattle rain never made an appearance and we were able to collect shoes from a great number of runners. By days end we had 452 pairs for those in need on the streets of Seattle. After we finished for the day, the shelter did their daily pickup onsite and took the shoes. By Monday they would be on the feet of people who needed them. Little did I know the first pair to be handed out would be to a woman who was in desperate need of shoes.

I showed up at the shelter Monday morning to get some film footage for our site and to interview a few people on the street about what it means to have a pair of shoes. Even though it was the mens shelter, this woman appeared in hopes of getting in for food. Little did she know a pair of shoes is what she would also receive. This picture doesn’t even begin to tell the story of what her feet looked like. They were swollen and cracked beyond anything imaginable. I went to the basement of the shelter where all the donated items were stored and started tearing open bags of shoes until I found 3 pairs that I thought might fit her. Most times people have forgotten their size, either because they have been wearing the wrong size to just make do or they have not had the money to buy an adequate pair. Lucky for her, the first pair she tried, fit.

As I look back on our transaction I remember she had a mask on for allergy reasons or health reasons of some other kind and we never exchanged names. I guess it really wasn’t necessary. All I could see was her eyes and as I looked up from her foot as it slid into her new shoe I could tell from the lines around her eyes a smile was under her mask. “Thank you sir” was all that was said and we parted ways.

There are many signs we come across in our daily lives. Sometimes if we follow them we stay out of harms way and if we don’t, bad things happen. I’m not sure what signs those on the street might have seen and not followed and to be honest it’s not for me to say they should have. All I know is, the sign I’ve read says for us to love our neighbor. That’s definitely one I think if we all followed more often would change the world. After all, you can’t look at this smile and tell me different.