Share the Joy: Donate Your Old Shoes and Gear

’Tis the season of excess. Of shopping. Of buying shiny new water bottles and cozy new fleeces for friends and family, and maybe sometimes for ourselves. It’s the season of consumerism in overload.

There’s an antidote to all the commercialism though, at least when it comes to outdoor gear. Take those shoes that have lost their midsole pop and that backpack that you never really liked anyway and find them a new home with someone who may love them. It’s a win-win. You’re clearing out clutter and doing good—putting quality shoes on someone else’s feet and maybe helping them discover a love for an outdoor sport or walking in the woods.

Sharing the Wealth

There are a lot of ways to donate gear—a good one being Outside’s Gear Up, Give Back Program—and you can find a lot of articles describing them with a quick search. Instead of repeating these lists, I’d like to tell you an inspiring, real-life story.

My friend, Kristen Mecca, has long made a habit of leaving behind her gear when visiting developing countries. After hiking Machu Picchu, she and her mom gave their boots and headlamps to their porters, which inspired others in their group to gift their sleeping bags. “The porters really valued our gear for themselves,” says Mecca, “and told us there was also a way to sell their gear and make money. So, they were either going to use the good quality gear or feed their families from selling it.”

Mecca always travels with an extra bag of gear, which she’s left behind on trips to the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, but she’s also packed out anything she couldn’t give away directly. “I never want to contribute to a trash problem,” she says. “So anything that doesn’t biodegrade, recycle, or add value gets packed back up and taken home with me.”

This fall, Mecca started volunteering as a coach for Girls on the Run, a national nonprofit that encourages elementary school-aged girls to be active among a supportive community. Because she’s seen how appreciated lightly used, quality gear can be to people in developing countries, she felt compelled to share the practice with her Girls on the Run group.

Connecting Good Things

Based in Northern Virginia, Mecca says that she was aware of how much money goes into youth sports and activity in general in her area, and figured a lot of lightly used shoes were just lying around in peoples’ homes. She also had a lot of gear herself that she was looking to repurpose. After doing some research, Mecca landed on Sneakers4Good, an organization that collects shoes and reallocates them to people in developing countries. Sneakers4Good sends people like Mecca large bags to fill with shoes, and a prepaid shipping label. In addition to giving shoes new life with those in need, the company allows the organizer to choose a charity of their choice to receive a check for roughly $1 per pound of shoes donated.

With the help of two high school-aged volunteer coaches, Mecca collected 93 pairs of shoes and soccer cleats from her Girls on the Run training group this fall.

“It was really easy,” says Mecca. She gave the girls a week to gather shoes from within their networks. “The high school girls who volunteer as coaches also reached out to their own communities and helped out. Now I know the potential is there.”

Mecca worked with the local director of Girls on the Run to donate the money from Sneakers4Good to buying shoes for girls in the program who need them to participate in the program’s culmination, a community 5K. She also organized another shoe collection and donated the money to a charity that matters to her—Animal Rescues of the Rockies.

What may be most impactful in the long term is that Mecca is helping one of the high school-aged volunteer coaches conduct her own collections throughout the sports seasons and choose a nonprofit that’s meaningful to her—once she’s done taking the SATs (she’s tied up until then).

“It’s been fun having a creative way to give multiple beneficiaries—those in need of gear, the animal rescue organization dear to my heart, and I’m benefitting too–from all the feel-good hormones and the energy boost from doing something I’m excited about that helps others,” Mecca says. That’s as fitting an antidote to holiday commercialism as I can imagine.