Toms Shoes Give-Away

TOMS Shoes Give-Away

            Have you ever heard of shoes being given away to hundreds of people? Have you ever seen people wear TOMS? Well, those are the shoes that are given away.

            Every year, our school gets new shoes, called TOMS. All grades get these new shoes so nobody is left behind.

            In order for the students to get their shoes, volunteers come and call each grade in one by one. Then the students get into two lines. At the head of each line there are feet measurers. They measure how big your feet are, and write down your shoe size. The students then hand off their number to another volunteer who hands the students’ shoes to them, giving them black, blue, or dark green.

            But who started TOMS shoes? Why would they want to give away all those shoes? The founder and Chief Shoe Giver of TOMS is Blake Mycoskie. He started his TOMS business about 7 years ago. He created the idea of One for One. That idea was, for every pair of TOMS shoes that was bought, another pair was given to a child in need of some shoes. Because of his charitable idea, over 2 million pairs of new shoes were given to children in need of shoes since 2006.

He started TOMS unintentionally. When he visited Argentina, he saw children growing up without any shoes, and he wanted to fix that. So he did when he created his shoe business.

            Not only does Blake apply the idea of One for One for shoes, but he also recognized that sight should be another One for One. As he was travelling around the world, he realized that he could give more. So, he created the idea of TOMS eyewear. With every pair of eyewear purchased, TOMS would give sight to another person, one for one.

(from http://www.toms.com/

blakes-bio/l).

By Cierra Dougherty