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When they don’t wear their mask and cape, they’re hard to recognize.

Shoes with Souls is honored and humbled to announce our new affiliation with TOMS Shoes..

Even though these are cynical times, bear this in mind: Good Guys win every once in a while. Full grown men sometimes learn from a child. ~ Jimmy Buffet

In 2006 Blake Mycoskie was travelling through South America when he saw, for the first time, hundreds of children without shoes. “I had never met anyone who didn’t have shoes.” It would have been easy to return home to Santa Monica and relegate the experience to a memory. But Blake doesn’t do easy.A serial entrepreneur, Blake had 4 start-up businesses under his belt at the tender age of 30.  A former tennis pro with movie star good looks, Blake could have done a lot of things when he returned to California.  Start a hedge fund perhaps.  Instead he chose to make a difference in the lives of those children.

“October 21, 2005 Xi’an, Peoples Republic of China. Our footsteps echo through the grey hallways of the Provincial government building. Bare light bulbs illuminate cracked plaster and stained ceiling tiles as we make our way to the office. We are all nervous; we are meeting our daughter for the first time. Born with a third degree cleft lip and palate she was left at the doorstep of a Central China orphanage; her umbilical cord still attached. For the next three years she was raised by “aunties”; young women who worked in the orphanage providing care for these children. I was especially nervous; I had never been a father before. During the past year when self-doubt about my abilities to be a Dad raised themselves I found bitter comfort in the thought that regardless of my ability, I just had to be better than a Chinese orphanage. Right?”

Blake decided to start a shoe company called Toms: Shoes for Tomorrow.  The mission statement for the company is simplicity itself.  To give a free pair of shoes to a child in need every time they sell a pair.

“The door opens and a small group walks in.  My new daughter is peeking out from behind her auntie, smiling broadly.  We are armed with bubbles and hand puppets and soon coax her to us.  She is playing with my step daughter, putting on a great show; yet her eyes return to the face of her care-giver every few seconds.  Her auntie is also smiling but the tears in her eyes tell a different story.  The paperwork with the officials seems to take forever but at last it is time for us to leave.  Kaziah smiles as if to thank us for the bubbles and goes to her auntie.  This beautiful woman shakes her head at her and tells her that she is to go with us.  We don’t need a translator to understand “..mommy..” as the realization hits this child that she will not see her surrogate mother again.  What happened next is a blur; this 3 year old child once again losing her entire world; her care-giver sobbing as she trys to leave the room; emotions so raw they seem to disturb the layer of dust on the desks.  I have never felt so ashamed for thinking for a moment that I could provide for this child better than this woman has.  I suddenly felt very inadequate.”

 Six months after starting the business, Toms shoes gave away 10,000 pairs of shoes to disadvantaged children in Argentina and South Africa.  This year they are on track to give away 200,000 pairs.

“That night at the hotel we try console our new daughter to no avail.  Kaziah is in pure survival mode, grieving losing everything she loved… once again.  We wash her and prepare her for bed.  My wife reaches to remove her shoes and Kaziah flinches.  She has already lost everything; she is not going to give up her only posession.  For the next three nights she sleeps with this little pair of pink canvas shoes on her feet.  We are able to convince her to take them off when we bathe her, but only if we leave them in plain sight.  Once out of the tub she puts the shoes back on her still damp feet.”

Toms customers are not consumers, they are evangelists.   The one-for-0ne model is sustainable.  Make no mistake: Toms is a for-profit company.  Had Blake decided to start a not-for-profit company then he could have given away shoes once or twice.  But by providing great shoes and great service to their customers they can continue their charitable work as well.

 “Five days later it is official: our child hates us.  Or more specifically, she hates my wife.  I am an oddity and am tolerated by her, my step-daughter is adored by her, but my wife…

She cries herself to sleep pleading for her mother, and we all know who she means, and it isn’t my wife.  My step-daughter draws pictures of our family, Ba’ Ba’ <father> Jie Jie <older sister> and  Ma Ma <needs no translation>.  Kaziah is quick to grab the crayon and obliterate my wife from the picture. 

On our last day in Xi’an we go into a shoe store.  We are an oddity and crowds gather wherever we go, snapping pictures of us on cell-phones and lots of smiles and pointing.  Our translator tells us that the crowds are curious about my beautiful European wife and step-daughter with an equally beautiful but obviously Chinese child in tow.  When the crowd realizes that we are on an adoption trip they call Kaziah a “lucky girl”.  She certainly doesn’t feel lucky though.

On this day a small crowd of young Chinese women gather around our daughter.  Some work for the shoe store but I suspect many do not.  They realize we are looking for shoes for Kaziah and they seem to compete with each other to find her the perfect pair.  The group consensus is a very practical pair of black shoes which my new daughter holds gingerly.  About this time my wife appears with a pair of neon pink vinyl shoes with appliqued flowers in a garish pattern.  Kaziah looks at her, then the shoes.  For a moment she seems to forget she hates my wife and squeals with delight, tossing the black pair into the aisle behind her and peels off her canvas pair for this very impractical pair of shoes.  

It isn’t until that moment that I know that everything is going to be alright.  There were many more difficult days ahead of us but that little pair of pink shoes began the healing process.  Three and a half years later my daughter and her mother are inseperable.  So if you ever wonder if by giving away shoes Toms can make a difference in the life of a child I am here to tell you yes.  Sometimes it is the things we take for granted that make all the difference to children in need.”

What’s next for Toms?  Ethiopia.  Over a million people in Ethiopia are suffering from a condition called  Podoconiosis, a soil-transmitted disease caused by walking in silica-rich soil.  This condition is 100% preventable with shoes, and Toms will be there.  One-for-One.

© 2009 Shoes With Souls.