I read a great article on the NPR website about Blake Mycoskie, a fabulous young entrepreneur who founded a company called Tom shoes. I was impressed by this article because he is just a little older than me and is doing what I only dream of. He is making a huge impact in our world one pair of shoes at a time. Blake is a well-traveled visionary who has made himself quite a success. He is without question an amazing role model, and a hero to many. Blake started his entrepreneurial spirit when he was in college at Southern Baptist University. His first venture was a laundry service that he started with some college buddies. The business really took off. Blake continued creating successful businesses but wasn’t satisfied with just working in business. He needed to feed his sense of adventure, so he set of to travel the globe.
He ended up in Argentina traveling around the country, learning to dance and making a grim realization. Most of the people in the areas he was visiting didn’t have shoes. He saw a great need here because peoples feet were getting cut up, bruised, and kids were not able to attend school without proper footwear. Being an natural entrepreneur and feeling the drive to make a difference, Blake’s wheel’s began to turn. In no time he had found somebody to create a replica of a traditional Argentinian shoe worn by both the upper and lower classes. His venture was underway!
Blake began to sell his shoes with the promise that for every shoe he sold today in the states, tomorrow one would be given to a person in need. This is how he came up with the name for his company, TOMS. It’s funny because everybody assumes that there is some guy around named Tom, there is not. Blake says that everyone involved is a Tom. He currently employs 100+ “toms” to work for the company. Most of them are young, motivated, and politically minded folks, all with the desire to make a difference on shoe at a time. The company now shoes people from not only Argentina, but also South Africa, Latin America, Haiti, and other impoverished countries. His initial promise has grown from 250 pairs of shoe to be donated, and now the company has given away more than a million pairs to people in need.
I loved this story, I felt genuinely inspired to see somebody so young and motivated make a difference in such a seemingly simple way. The shoes by design are pretty basic, but very trendy in a social way. It has always been “in” to do the right thing and be a caring, giving person and these shoes help to fit the bill. You can be fashionable and get something you are going to need anyway, and be doing a great service to humanity all by buying a simple pair of shoes. This definitely made me make a few changes to my Christmas shopping list. I know a couple of folks who would be more than happy to support such an amazing cause and look killer doing it!
Very cool topic to talk about. Its great that someone can try so hard to help others in need. If more companies did stuff like this, their would less people out there struggling. He is making the world a better place, one pair of shoes at a time.
ReplyDeleteWow, this sounds great. What-a-guy! Hes another way to show that not only big companies and big names can help but he gives a good example that being young and very motivated can defiantly make a change on one simply thing in the world, such as buying a pair of shoes...
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