50,000 Pairs of Shoes in 50 Days :: Update

Christmas is fast approaching and soon (for some) the gifts purchased up to this point will translate into a lousy January, but if you haven’t finished quite yet, please consider the 50,000 Shoes campaign.  I wanted to give a quick update to my post back in November called Soles4Souls Blogging Challenge, 50,000 Pairs of Shoes in 50 Days. As b/ said in his post, there are so many worthy charities around this time of year, but one that is truly worthy is spending just $5 for 2 pairs of shoes for someone who doesn’t have any shoes.

I was listening to a song called “The Christian” this morning when I was getting ready for work, and it made me think, is how people see Christians, or perhaps how we see others who call themselves Christians?  The third verse really stood out to me (in bold below) as I thought about the 50000 shoes campaign and how easy it should be for us bloggers to meet the goal put forth by Anne Jackson (they are even giving away really cool stuff like a Nintendo Wii and a MacBook).

What good does it do to just talk.  I love when I find people who have taken their blogs or websites and have actually done something worth wild.  Even if they don’t reach their goal it was great to see how many shoes have been donated from total strangers across the Internet.  Consider these verses below.  They may not have anything at all to do with shoes, but this (secular) song points out how we put ourselves first.

It’s a hell of a time to be thinking about heaven
Didn’t you forget the golden rule
You’ve been acting like Jesus owes you a favor
But he’s a little smart for you to fool

You complain how you forgets the gospel
You remind them seek and you shall find
Maybe youth will have a time for seeking
After they clean up what you left behind

You were right there when the plate was passed last Sunday
That’s the second time you’ve been to church all year
Could you really call yourself a Christian
If charity cost half as much as beer

You pray a little more as you grow older
You get religion as your hair turns gray
But you don’t need to worry about hereafter
Just worry what you’re going to do today

Cause it’s a hell of a time to be thinking about heaven
Didn’t you forget the golden rule
You’ve been acting like Jesus owes you a favor
But he’s a little smart for you to fool
Yes my friend I think you’ve blown your cool

—- The Christian, [Buffett]

After reading Tony Morgan’s post about 50,000 shoes called All Talk and No Action?, where he talked about the correlation between words and action, I was quite disgusted, or more like disappointed I guess.  At that point, over 3500 blog posts had been written about the 50,000 shoes and only 1500 of those posts translated into the action of actually purchasing a pair of shoes.  That means not only did not all the blog writers donate, but they also didn’t get any of their readers to donate either.  We are talking $5 here, less than that cup of coffee at Starbucks or that 12-pack at the grocery store.

Just a quick look this morning found these blog posts from just the past few hours and days.  Let’s be bloggers of action, not just words.

• 50,000 Shoes
• 50,000 Shoes In 50 Days
• Shoes From Tires?
• Help me buy 50,000 Shoes.
• Anne Jackson and 50,000 Shoes
• 50,000 Shoes
• 50,000 shoes in 50 days
• 50,000 shoes!
• 50,000 shoes
• 50,000 Shoes in 50 Days
• 50,000 Shoes Soles 4 Souls
• Final Shopping Days

My blog has approximately 100 subscribers.  If each one of us donated $5 that would translate into 200 pairs of shoes.  Deb and I are going to go ahead and make another Christmas donation and I would ask my readers if they were led to give to a worthy cause this Christmas check out 50,000 shoes.  I know Anne Jackson personally (although briefly) and I know she has put a lot into achieving this goal.  You can’t go wrong by giving someone a pair of shoes who doesn’t have any.