A Beautiful Idea
Over the past several months, many of my loyal SoFortWorthIt followers have heard me talking about Beautiful Feet Ministries. We then took it a step further and planned our first city-wide Collection Day. I am still blown away by the generous hearts in Fort Worth who helped me and my family make a difference for this incredible local ministry. The SoFortWorthIt community helped fill an entire U-Haul truck with desperately needed items such as backpacks, suitcases, toiletries, bulk food, cases of water and, men’s & women’s clothing, and shoes. Generous monetary donations were given and still continue to pour in.
If you have made it this far and realized you missed the chatter, I am filling you in here and hope you will join us again for our Collection Day in the fall!
To rewind a bit, this all started with a closet purge in January. We hired the FABULOUS Bonnie Smith, also known as @ShopWithBonnie on Instagram. We go WAAAAY back to the old days when I shopped with her at Neiman Marcus. Now she is an independent shopping consultant, and I knew she would be the perfect person to do a full purge and edit on Jason’s side of the closet.
When the work was completed, we had a pile of all sorts of clothing that needed to be donated. I reached out to long-time friend (like middle school long time) Lance Cashion, the Outreach Pastor at Christ Chapel, and he reminded me about Beautiful Feet Ministries.
After going to their website, I was so moved by Beautiful Feet’s mission I knew we needed to do something more than donate clothes from one closet cleanout. That’s when we as a family put our heads together and came up with the idea for a city-wide collection drive to help aid in their efforts and bring awareness to Beautiful Feet.
We hit the ground running with planning. We had the graphics designed by a great local designer, mailed invitations to our Christmas Card list, pushed it on social media, and even advertised the city-wide Collection Day in a local magazine.
A Beautiful Ministry
Before the Collection Drive, our family spent Good Friday volunteering at the Beautiful Feet campus. It started with a church service for the volunteers, and then we were given our assignments before opening the doors to serve over 300 homeless and underprivileged individuals. We did everything from greeting and putting name tags on folks coming in, bussing the disabled to and from “True Worth Place” near Lancaster, and serving meals to each person.
While the homeless attended the second church service, we got a full behind-the-scenes tour of Beautiful Feet’s facility, including the medical and dental clinics, showers, laundry rooms, and clothing and supply closet. Volunteering and seeing the incredible ministry they run was more of a blessing than we could ever put into words. We left Beautiful Feet with full hearts from serving our community and truly felt the presence of the Lord in that special place on Good Friday.
A Beautiful Collection Day
A couple of weeks later, we hosted our Collection Day for Beautiful Feet in the Christ Chapel parking lot. All of our planning efforts paid off, and the love started POURING in. We were set up with a big ol’ U-Haul truck, coffee, donuts, and big smiles. A Kona-Ice truck popped by to serve up free treats for those dropping off, which added a little sweetness for everyone. After 4 hours of folks rollin’ through with their items, we had a FULL U-haul! It was an incredible amount of donations!
I have said it before, and I’ll shout it again, FORT WORTH is FILLED with the most GIVING, KIND, INTENTIONAL people, and we are surrounded by the best in this community. There was not one item given that didn’t match their needs. Which. Was. Amazing.
We wrapped up the day by delivering and unloading the U-Haul at Beautiful Feet with family and some of our closest friends. Our hearts were filled, and the shelves at Beautiful Feet were full, thanks to everyone who participated.
As I mentioned, we plan to do this again in September as we head into cooler months here in Texas, and we will focus on collecting much-needed warm clothing, blankets, and more suitcases and backpacks. Stay tuned for the date. We hope to grow this community-wide effort with help from each of you!
It all started with a beautiful idea and the constant tug my heart feels to honor and serve the Lord. As one of my favorite verses reads, “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:6). If you or your family are looking for a great place to volunteer together to serve our community, Beautiful Feet is your place.
Thank you to ALL who made this project a success. If you missed the excitement and still would like to help make an impact, you can give a FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTION HERE or purchase an item off their URGENT NEEDS LIST HERE, which will directly ship to Beautiful Feet.
PHOTO CREDIT: Laura McCarthy / Elusive Images
