Stepping in the right direction

Shoes have always come with just as many promises as they have designs: This pair will make you taller. Those will make you look skinnier. These displace your center of gravity. But what about a pair that benefits a needy child thousands of miles away? It may sound like a pretty tall order, but TOMS Shoes has risen to the challenge, and taking it all in stride, has created a cool way to erase the guilt of buying yet another pair of footwear and instead replace it with the feel-good warmth of giving back.
TOMS Shoes started in 2006, when founder Blake Mycoskie was traveling in Argentina and witnessed a disturbing number of children without such a seemingly basic necessity: shoes. As hard as it may be to believe, when we live in a culture where shoe organizers are necessary to save you from taking twenty minutes to find the right pair in that pile by your closet door, and where fashion-savvy lads and lasses consider the likes of Jimmy Choos and Manolo Blahnik a higher power, a whopping 40 percent of the world’s people don’t have any shoes. And in countries like Argentina, where a child’s walk to get water can be miles, that can prove a painful, and even dangerous, reality.
After hearing about a local shoe drive and running into friend Alejo Nitti, a professional polo player, and sharing his concern, “It just clicked in my head,” explains Mycoskie of the TOMS epiphany. “I said, ‘What if, we started a company, instead of doing a shoe drive every year, we are providing shoes all the time? And so every pair of shoes we sell, we give back a pair to a child who doesn’t have shoes?’”
Together Mycoskie and Nitti did just that. Creating the line of Appagato-style shoes, TOMS has given over 140,000 pairs of shoes to children in need since beginning the One-for-One model, donating one pair for every pair sold.
On Sunday, June 28, from noon to 4 p.m., The Loop will host “TOMS-Style Your Sole,” a shoe-decorating celebration, in the hopes of spreading the work and love of TOMS shoes throughout the Sonoma Valley. The event will feature five local artists, who will be on hand to help decorate white pairs of TOMS for free, as well as art supplies, donated by TOMS and local art store, Fine Line, for those who wish to decorate their own pair. “We carry a lot of different designs and patterns of TOMS, but this is so cool and so special because everyone can have their own individual pair of shoes” said Andrea Jensen, manager of The Loop, “I’m really excited for this. Usually our parties are more cocktail parties, very formal. But this is just going to be fun, it’s for families. Come in your paint scrubs, your casual old blue jeans, paint some shoes, and leave in your TOMS.” A silent auction featuring shoes decorated by the local artists and a barbecue will also be part of the festivities, but come early if you plan to deck out the whole family, as only a limited supply of shoes for men and children will be available. A pair of white TOMS and an afternoon of decorating costs $46, a small price to pay for an entirely unique pair of shoes, not to mention the second pair provided by your purchase to a child-in-need. Additionally, The Loop will donate 10 percent of the event’s profits to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Sonoma Valley, just so the heartwarming can hit even a little closer to home.
The Loop is located at 461 First St. W., 707.939.8400.