You can change the world this Christmas by buying raincoats for the homeless or shoes for the, um, shoeless. Two great, simple and cheap charity ideas:

50,000 Shoes in 50 Days
Anne Jackson teamed up with Soles4Souls to issue a challenge: Buy 50,000 pairs of shoes in 50 days. $5 will buy you two pairs of shoes. Soles4Souls gets shoes to people who need them, helping to keep them safe and healthy. There’s less than a week left in the challenge and more tan 40,000 pairs of shoes to go. There’s been some talk that this effort is more talk than action, that lots of people are talking about it but few are donating. That’s lame. I bought a pair of shoes (OK, two pairs). You can, too.

Dreaming of a Dry Christmas
I’ve talked about invisiblepeople.tv before, the site telling the stories of real homeless people. The man behind it, Mark Horvath, is working with homeless people in Los Angeles and has seen a need for raincoats. Michael Buckingham of Holy Cow Creative wants to send Mark 100 coats. He’s dreaming of a dry Christmas. $4.29 is all it takes to buy a raincoat for a homeless person. I bought one. It’s not much, but tell that to the homeless person getting soaked.