Just so you can put your mind at rest, I did mean “soles.” Thank you so much to Lillian who wrote to tell me about soles4souls! This company is doing really great things for the planet (recycling gently used shoes) AND has a social responsibility component (giving those shoes to people who don’t have them). It’s mission is simple: get shoes to people all over the world who don’t have them. I imagine some of you might be saying to yourself “she is just finding out about this now?” Well, yes. )

Soles4shoes was founded by a man named Wayne Elsey. He was sitting at home one night watching TV after the Asian Tsunami. He wanted to figure out how to help and his inspiration came from one single shoe washing up on the beach in one of the newscasts. He made a couple of phone calls to some other executives in the footwear industry that resulted in over a quarter of a million shows being donated. After Katrina and after the same group sent over a MILLION pairs of shoes to the gulf coast, Mr. Elsey resigned from his big executive position to formally create Soles4Souls.

So what’s the green connection? There are drop off locations all over the country where you can bring your “gently used” shoes and the participating retailers will send them to Soles4Souls to distribute around the globe. I was pleasantly surprised when I went to their website, did a search for Tucson and found about SIX stores within a few miles of my house. Save stuff from going into the landfills, get rid of shoes you haven’t worn in over a year, and help provide shoes to people who would not otherwise have them. The Green Trifecta!