In the five years since Blake Mycoskie started TOMS, his quirky canvas espadrilles have become as ubiquitous as flip-flops. From the company’s laid-back hometown of Santa Monica to downtown New York City, you can barely walk a block without seeing a pair. (In fact, our blog editor is rocking her Rugby x TOMS shoes as we speak.)
This is a good thing, because for every pair of TOMS you see on a stylish man or woman around town, another pair is being donated to a child in a developing company.
TOMS’s one-for-one model has helped put shoes on more than a million children so far, and the momentum has propelled the company into its next chapter. Starting this week, TOMS new line of sunglasses will be doing for your eyes what their shoes do for your feet: that is, making you look good while you help someone in need. For every pair you buy, funds are donated to eye care for someone in a developing country.
Why eye care?
When Blake and his team set off to Nepal to understand how blindness and vision-impairment affects people living in poverty, they learned that the majority of blinding conditions are either preventable or curable. They watched as a pair of eyeglasses brought the world into focus for the first time in a child’s life; how an eye exam and medicine cleared a threatening eye infection for a father who could then return to work; and befriended a mother who, after a 15-minute cataract surgery, saw her child clearly for the first time. They heard stories of those people that the clinics couldn’t reach and stories of people who could not afford care – and the ways that preventable blindness impacted their abilities, families and communities.
We’re huge fans of the concept and the sunglasses. Check them out here.