I am working on freeing myself of physical clutter contained within my habitat, truth is, I feel very weighed-down with past decisions resulting in mass overconsumption on my part. This bout of cleansing started with clothing and accessories, spread to my bookshelves and currently has halted with the random boxes that have been tucked away in my various closets.
I have been an athlete since I could tie my shoes and have managed to accumulate my fair share of hardware. I am on the brink of my 8th marathon and umpteenth half marathon and decided that only a few of these race medals hold any sentimental value. I thought to myself, there HAS to be something positive that I can do with my box of race-finishing proof.
I stumbled across this week’s flavor while conducting a simple google search of ‘donate’ AND ‘race medals’ AND ‘non-profit’. I’m a sucker for boolean indicators.
Medals4Mettle is a non-profit organization with the mission “to celebrate and reward the individual and collective courage of all human beings by facilitating the gifting of marathon finisher’s medals from marathoners to people who have demonstrated similar mettle, or courage.” This amazing organization collects medals from half-marathoners, marathoners and triathletes and distributes them to a network of physicians throughout the country, who then award them to those who may not be able to complete an endurance event. The medal recipients are individuals dealing with disease, handicaps or similar challenges who are in the midst of their own race to continue to live their life. Doesn’t that just give you chills?
And what is really great, this organization makes donation so easy! Just choose the medals you wish to donate, remove the ribbons (Medals4Mettle replaces the ribbons with their own design) and prepare them for shipment or drop-off to your local coordinator.
I’m a sucker for a great cause and the thought of the smiles that could potentially result from the small sacrifice I am making warms my heart more than I could ever put into words.
Wow, this is amazing – I’ve never heard of it before! What a great cause…….
I had never heard of it either! I was pretty pumped to find it. The NEO local coordinator lives in Rocky River. I am going to drop-off my medals this week! 🙂