Image courtesy of Soles4Souls
Last Thursday, my house was a mess.
Oh, who am I kidding? Calling it a mess would have to be the understatement of the year. In all reality, my house resembled an abandoned shipping warehouse – complete with rolls of packing tape, enormous cardboard boxes, and hundreds, yes hundreds, of shoes.
I know I should have been horrified at the mess, but I wasn’t. Instead, I couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off of my sweaty, dust-smeared face.
Image courtesy of We Know Stuff
You see, my family and I were wrapping up the final day of our shoe collection for the Soles4Souls Flippin’ Good Deeds Challenge and we couldn’t believe our eyes. Thanks to the kindness of family, friends, and co-workers, there were pairs of shoes stacked in every corner of our house.
I must say that when my sister and I started this challenge, we never expected to receive so many pairs of shoes. Seriously, we thought we would be able to collect at least a hundred, but we never fathomed being able to collect hundreds. We’re still in awe.
Image courtesy of We Know Stuff
The actual process of running a shoe drive was fairly simple. We started by writing a blog post announcing the Soles4Souls Flippin’ Good Deeds Challenge, and then we stalked everyone we knew on FaceBook and Twitter. (You have to love social media!)
Before long, the shoes started coming in. At first, we had planned to just ship them ourselves, and we thought that we had the shoe collecting situation under control. But once we reached a 100 pairs of shoes, we knew that we needed some help if our collected shoes were going to reach Alabama by November 15th.
Image courtesy of Soles4Souls
So with such a terrific turn-out hot on my heels, I asked my husband if he’d be willing to take a ride…with a car full of aromatic, gently used shoes. Luckily for us, my husband also believes in Soles4Souls, and the work that they do, so he kindly offered to drive anything and everything that we collected down to their warehouse in New Jersey. (Thank you Brennan, I love you dearly!)
With the end date of the shoe drive looming ever closer, we decided to pack up the shoes last Thursday evening, which is how “the mess of all messes” came to be. I was trying to multi-task, and was doing a pretty good job at reviewing the donor forms, checking the shoe counts, and adding them to the shipping cartons – when I decided to go get a glass of water.
Image courtesy of Soles4Souls
Before I headed into the kitchen, I checked on the kids and they were busy counting the shoes on the floor, and crawling in-and-out of the empty shipping cartons. All was well, or so it seemed.
Unfortunately, for me, in our house, all it takes is just one second for utter chaos to ensue. The kids, who had been SO good up until that very moment in time, decided to climb “Gorilla Mountain” while I was getting my much-needed glass of water.
Image courtesy of Soles4Souls
What’s “Gorilla Mountain” you ask? Uhhh, yeah – that would be the four boxes of neatly packed shoes that they toppled to the floor and squashed all of the contents out of. Super!
Surprisingly, I wasn’t even upset with them because they were seeing – firsthand – how wonderful and exciting it was to help those in need. Soles4Souls is one of the organizations that we support on a regular basis, but up until now, our children had never seen such a large-scale donation. Usually, we drop-off about 20 pairs of shoes at a time, but this time – well, there were shoes just about everywhere!
Image courtesy of Soles4Souls
How could I get mad at them for simply having fun while they doing such a great charitable deed? So, I simply started from scratch, and started packing up the boxes again, but this time, I kept an even closer eye on my little Gorillas.
When my husband got home, I realized that it was time for dinner. I didn’t really want to get bogged down with cooking, so we told the kids that we would get them something from the diner around the corner. However, our offer was turned down.
Image courtesy of Soles4Souls
Apparently, the kids were too excited about getting all of the shoes packed up to even care about getting a special treat for dinner – instead, my son simply said, “Nah, that’s okay Mom. We’ll just take a PB&J on the road. We’ve got work to do.”
And so, with a happy smile still plastered on my face, we packed up the boxes, and loaded them into the car, all the while knowing that hundreds of people would benefit from our simple good deed.
Image courtesy of We Know Stuff
Thank you to all of our family, friends and co-workers for contributing so many pairs of shoes – you’ve helped change the world, for the better, with your kindhearted donation.
Thanks for helping us, Soles4Souls, FlipFlop Wines, and all of the individuals that will truly benefit from your very good deed,
Denine & Daniele
Image courtesy of Soles4Souls
P.S. As you all know by now, my family and I are loyal supporters of Soles4Souls. So much so, that you’re probably wondering if we’ll ever stop talking about them. Well, I’m afraid that won’t be possible. So instead, here are several more posts that we’ve written about them before – because each time we donate a pair of shoes to someone in need, we know we’ve done a sincerely good deed:
More blog posts about Soles4Souls:
Soles4Souls – Changing The World, One Pair At A Time®
Tis the Season to Give Back…Soles4Souls
The Importance of Volunteering
Support Soles4Souls’ Flippin’ Good Deeds Challenge
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