The charities idea is a good way to solve the lack of experience issue.

Another way is to get a list of the LAN/Network shops in your area, call them and tell them that about your situation and your credentials and that you're willing to work at extremely low rates.
They're a good source of leads and you can help them out too.
That's how I broke the ice with .NET.
I did a couple of jobs for peanuts.
Now I'm cranking out some juicy billings with C# .NET.

Try to attend any .NET user group meetings, MS presentations, etc, that you can, no matter how unrelated they might seem to your situation.
I got some great insights by going to things like that and hanging out with older programmers like myself who had gone thru the transition.
And I also learned some good technical tricks as well.

Hound the headhunters too. They can come up with some great jobs out of nowhere.

>>Yes. It would also give me something to do besides look for work and study .NET. I happen to enjoy learning new things so I won't call the latter a waste of time, but so far no one has been willing to give me a chance without work experience.

Earlier this week I made a decision. I am going to give it another week and a half staying focused on VFP, SQL Server, and .NET opportunities, then open it up to anything I can find. "Hello, welcome to Wal-Mart!"