Hiking + smartphone = money for charity! Let’s help some people with hiking!

So this blog has accomplished a whole lot in three and half years, from posting adorable pictures of my children all the way to using terrible puns.

Orange you glad I posted this picture?

But seriously, my family and friends and I have had a blast checking out over 100 trails in South Jersey, and I know that a lot of folks have gotten a lot of miles (ba dum crash!) out of this absurd blog.  Lots of enjoyment all around.

So now, let’s help some folks.  How?  By doing something that we’re already doing – hiking.

It’s simple.

1) Go pick up your smart phone.  Take it away from your child who is taking pictures of playmobile horsie forts if you need to.

2) Download the FREE “Charity Miles” app from the iTunes store or the Google Store or whatever store your phone uses.

3) Join the team “southjerseytrails”. (Folks already using this app, you can totally join more than one team, but it’ll split your miles between the two of them).

4) Every time you go for a hike or walk or bike ride or on a treadmill, fire up this app, choose which charity you’d like to support (I’ve been hiking for the National Park Foundation since I downloaded it last week, but there are tons of great charities to choose from), pick what activity you are doing (outdoor walk/run, indoor walk/run, or outdoor bike), and get moving!

NOTE:  There is no “Hey, you started!” part.  Once the ad pops up after you choose what type of activity you are doing, it’s logging miles.

5) When you are done your activity, hit the stop button on the app and choose “Finish”.

That’s it!  For every mile on foot, 25 cents is donated to your charity.  For every mile biked, 10 cents is donated to your charity.  And it’s completely and totally legit.

There’s even a leaderboard so we can all compete with each other.  The Pres declares himself the winner in everything always, but second place is wide open to the rest of us.

So seriously, everybody get on this.  We’ll help some great charities out, we’ll get some friendly competition going over who is hiking how far, and everyone wins!

For more info, check out charitymiles.org