Tigers go barefoot with TOMS

– Erin L Givens

***The writer is enrolled in Comm 240 News Reporting.***

Each year Tigers in Service partners with TOMS Shoes to host the One Day Without Shoes event at Fort Hays State University.
Danielle Dougherty, Little River senior, is the student coordinator of Tigers in Service and helped plan this year’s event, which was held April 29 in the Memorial Union.

“Here at the Center for Civic Leadership, we really like events like this because they grab students’ attention and get them thinking about global issues,” Dougherty said.

Students had the opportunity to create a do-it-yourself T-shirt for a $2 donation, try out different terrains in their bare feet and participate in a barefoot march around the quad.

This is the second year FHSU has participated in the One Day Without Shoes event.

“The whole point of the day was to spread the word and get people to take their shoes off . . .I believe around 50 people went shoeless, including several professors. We sold around 50 T-shirts,” Dougherty said.

TOMS is a popular shoe company that has a One for One campaign, meaning for every pair of shoes purchased, TOMS donates a pair of shoes to a child in need. Regions that receive these shoes are in South America, Africa, Asia, and the majority of North America including the United States.

But TOMS does more than donate shoes. Along with its partners, TOMS provides healthcare, education, community development, and local jobs. Since the start of the company in 2006, TOMS has given away more than 10 million new pairs of shoes.

The firm ventured into eyewear in 2011 and has given away 200,000 pairs of glasses. TOMS also recently expanded to selling coffee, and now for every bag of coffee sold, TOMS guarantees 140 liters of water will be donated to a person in need.

On a trip to Argentina in 2006, a man named Blake Mycoskie saw that the children in a village he visited didn’t have adequate shoes. Mycoskie then created TOMS shoes and guaranteed that a pair of shoes would be donated for every pair bought.

What started as a simple concept grew and grew in popularity.

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