From now until the end of the day on April 23, 2012, Patagonia will donate $10 to Healthy Child, Healthy World for every pair of Patagonia shoes purchased from Online Shoes.

To raise awareness for this promotion, Patagonia is giving away a pair of their shoes to one lucky Smart Green Tips reader. Read on for more details. . .

I’ve written about Healthy Child, Healthy World before and discussed the important work they are doing to keep us and our children safe. You can read my post about them and visit their site yourself for helpful information and to learn more about how they bring about change.

Patagonia has long been a company that focuses on quality shoes and clothing just as much as they focus on their environmental impact. It’s fitting that a great company like Patagonia would support an organization like Healthy Child.

As part of this promotion, I was able to get my own pair of Patagonia shoes. I went with the Release Leather Trail Running Shoe and I couldn’t be happier. They are incredibly comfortable and stable with a gender-specific Vibram® outsole. As with most of their shoes, Patagonia has incorporated recycled materials into the Release.

For a chance to win your own pair of Patagonia shoes (you may select from any Patagonia shoes at Onlineshoes.com), simply do any or all of the things below and leave a comment for each, letting me know that you did them.

• Sign up for Smart Green Tips email updates (using the form on the upper right of this page) and leave a comment letting me know you did.

• Tweet this post to raise awareness about the promotion & the giveaway (include your tweet url in the comments).

• “Like” or Share this post on Facebook.

The winner will be announced on Earth Day, April 22. If you don’t happen to be the lucky winner, you’ll still have time to support Healthy Child through this promotion and snag yourself a great pair of Earth-friendly shoes in the process.

Update: The winner of the Patagonia Shoe Giveaway is Julie. Congratulations! Watch for an email from me letting you know how to get your shoes.

I recently discovered Roozt.com, which operates a lot like Groupon, except that it promotes only socially responsible companies. And, 1% of every purchase (that’s purchase, not profit) goes to charity.

From their website:

All daily deals will be featured in limited quantities for 48 hours only, so when you sign up and get a deal alert you’re interested in, make sure you get ‘em while they’re hot because deals tend to sell out quickly! All of our featured products are from inspiring socially responsible companies that have been thoroughly vetted by our experienced research team and certified to be doing great things for Humanity, their Communities, their Employees, and/or the Environment.

When you sign up, you’ll be emailed each new deal as it arrives. You can read about the offer and the company that supplies it and either purchase or pass. At Roozt.com, you can also look at past deals to get a sense of the types of products they offer.

If you like sites like Groupon and Living Social and if you’re someone who cares about socially responsible purchases and the environment, you’ll want to give Roozt a try.

I’m pleased to introduce Love Drop as a new featured do-gooder here on Smart Green Tips. Love Drop is a micro-giving network of people who unite as a community to make a difference in the lives of one person or family a month. By giving just $1.00, they make it easy for their members to change lives in a fun and super easy way.

At the end of every month, Nate and J$ (that’s J-Money) show up in the town the families live in and present them with everything the team raised — all the money, the gifts, whatever the community was able to contribute. It’s all on film, and it all ends with real people, just like us, making a difference! (And then it starts all over again the next month).

This month they are coming together for 2 beautiful kids with severe autism — Ethan & Alex. Their goal is to raise $13,000 so they can get them a highly trained service dog. And if possible, two iPads so they can speak again (they can’t even say “I love you” to their mom — these iPads allow them to get their voice back).

Check out this video of Ethan and Alex now (if you’re reading this via email, click here to see the video):

Here are 3 ways you can help:

Join the team – This is the best way to help out, and all it takes is $1.00.

Join the blogger network – Blog about Love Drops each month like I am It’s easy, it’s rewarding, and it REALLY helps spread the word (which, in turn, helps families). Love Drop will give you all the content you need.

Give a gift or provide a service – Gift cards (iTunes would be great!), two iPads (so we can help the boys speak again!), and anything else you think could help out.

I’m really impressed with the work Nate and J$ are doing. I know I’d like to do more to help others, but it can be difficult to figure out where to give, how to give, and how to know if my gifts really made a difference or not. Love Drop takes care of all of these concerns. It’s easy to get involved and it’s wonderful to see your gifts at work in the videos Nate and J$ record when they deliver help to the families.

The Love Drops will be a monthly feature here. It would be great if you got involved, but even if you don’t, I hope these stories of people helping other people will be inspiring.

As always, thanks for reading.