Nike and MJ

MJ Fox that is.

Since 1989, fashion forward (and generally forward-thinking) folks have been eagerly awaiting the production of Nike's self-lacing hightops worn by Marty McFly in Back to the Future II. Well sneakerheads, now's your chance to get the kicks and affect social change at the same time. In an effort to support the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, Nike is auctioning off 1,500 pairs of the cinematically famous Nike MAG.

Wittily dubbed Back 4 the Future, Nike's ingenious charity marketing campaign involves a great video (that has more or less gone viral, but it's embedded below nonetheless  -- sorry, I'm a bit slow in getting it up on the blog) starring Kevin Durant, Bill Hader, Christopher Lloyd, among others. To bid on the 2011 Nike MAG shoes, go to nikemag.ebay.com (at time of publication, bids on my size 12.0 were between $2075.00 and $3305.55).

Great Scott! It gets better -- Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of 23andMe (sorry, I didn't hyperlink to a description of or corporate website for Google; I assume everyone is at least generally familiar with the company, product, and verb), have agreed to match all donations to the Michael J. Fox Foundation - up to $50 million.

Perhaps more importantly, here is a message from Fantastic Mr. Fox himself...

And a brief clip of Fox's appearance on Letterman...

Here's a tip of my digital hat to the folks at Nike. They certainly know how to put together (what appears to be) a widely successful charity campaign. If you have some spare time and money, I encourage you to think about bidding on a pair of Nike MAGs, donating to the Michael J. Fox Foundation directly, or if you're feeling particularly generous, perhaps a donating to my own charitable fundraising efforts on behalf of the Chicago Fire Foundation (25 days and $395.00 to go).