Soles4Souls Creates 'National Barefoot Day' to Increase Participation in Charity's Events

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Feb. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Soles4Souls, the international footwear charity based in Nashville, has unveiled plans for a series of nationwide events to be held June 1-7, 2008. "National Barefoot Day" will take place on Sunday, June 1, with various events across the country scheduled for the rest of the week, which will be known as Barefoot Week, and will be held each year during the first week of June.

"We know that people will become engaged with our charity by participating in our events," said Wayne Elsey, CEO and Founder of Soles4Souls. "Raising awareness is a good thing, but for people to truly 'own' our charity, we need to give them chances to personally participate in our mission - and Barefoot Week is designed to do that," Elsey said.

According to Elsey, the organization is working hard to highlight the environmental benefits of turning in shoes as opposed to throwing them away. "A sad fact is that there are 300 million children in the world who have never owned a pair of shoes, while the same number of shoes were tossed into American landfills last year," he said. "We want to give people a reason to clean out their closets and help needy people while reducing the strain on our landfills at the same time," Elsey said.

Scarlett Johansson, who previously donated 2000 pairs of new shoes from her own line of Reebok footwear, is lending her name to help raise publicity about the weeklong event. Other celebrities, such as Lauren Conrad, have also voiced their support for the summer campaign, which will feature shoe drives, fun runs and walkathons, golf tournaments, retail trade-in events, parties and more. "Soles4Souls is an amazing organization and their efforts help those in need while promoting recycling at the same time," said Conrad. "I am proud to say that I will be cleaning out my closet on their behalf for the second year in a row and urging all of my friends to do the same," she said.

During this year's Barefoot Week, the charity will also donate more than 325,000 pairs of new shoes to needy people in five cities: New Orleans, Atlanta, Miami, Detroit, and Taylor, Arizona (Indian Reservation). To learn more about National Barefoot Day and the events planned for Barefoot Week 2008, visit www.soles4souls.org .

More About Soles4Souls, Inc.

Nashville-based Soles4Souls facilitates the donations of footwear, which are used to aid the hurting worldwide. Soles4Souls has donated more than 3 million pairs of shoes since its inception (one pair of shoes every 28 seconds). The charity was recently featured on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. Shoe companies, retailers, and individuals can donate both new and "gently worn" footwear. Soles4Souls is a 501(c)(3) recognized by the IRS; donating parties are eligible for tax advantages. For more information about Soles4Souls, please call (866) 521-SHOE, or visit www.giveshoes.org or www.soles4souls.org .