I woke up today at 3:00 AM along with my volunteers, also known as Mom, Dad and Mac, my older son who you might remember from a previous post of the event we attended at the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon. We all awoke from a short nights rest, ready to go to charity village as soon as we could in hopes of getting our booth set up at the Team World Vision tent. As I took the onramp onto Lake Shore Drive I noticed a couple people sleeping in the park on the west side of Lake Shore Drive under a blanket.  A blanket which I'm sure did nothing to keep them warm in the 32 degree weather.  I found it hard not to think to myself that this was the exact reason we were up before most of the population in the city on a Sunday morning.

Sidestepping all the mud in charity village from the previous days rainfall we made our way to the Team World Vision tent and began to set up. At about 6:30 AM the 1200 runners for Team World Vision gathered and began to overtake us with all their moderately worn shoes that they had no more use for.  From there they proceeded to the start line for the 2009 Bank of America Chicago Marathon.

[caption id="attachment_452" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The Reason "]<img class="size-medium wp-image-452" title="man with shoes" src="http://giveyoursole.com/blog/wp-content/uploads//dsc_3613-300x252.jpg" alt="The Reason " width="300" height="252" />[/caption]

Little did one of them know that their pair of shoes were about to become the reason that Give Your Sole exists.  A gentleman came walking through charity village and we soon realized the significance of why it was called that.  He was obviously a man without a home or a good pair of shoes and asked what we were doing.  We explained to him that we were collecting these shoes for people in need and from there our mission statement became a moment of action.  My number one supporter of all my life, Mom, and now volunteer, sat him down and dug through the trash bags of shoes until he set his eyes on a nice pair of red and white Nikes. Off came his black tennis shoes that weighed him down and on went the lighter pair, a pair of shoes that he was incredibly grateful to have.

[caption id="attachment_453" align="alignright" width="208" caption="A perfect fit"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-453" title="dsc_3619" src="http://giveyoursole.com/blog/wp-content/uploads//dsc_3619-208x300.jpg" alt="A perfect fit" width="208" height="300" />[/caption]