Newly formed TOMS club aim to help children

Members of the University of Richmond's newly established TOMS Campus Club want to help get shoes to children in developing countries such as Argentina, Ethiopia and South Africa, senior Lauren Graf said.

According to its website, for each pair of shoes the TOMS company sells, it donates a new pair to a child in need. The company was founded in 2006, not by a man named Tom, but Blake Mycoskie, an entrepreneur from Arlington, Texas. According to the TOMS Shoes website, Mycoskie founded the company after he had befriended children in Argentina and found they had no shoes to protect their feet.

Graf is the president of the TOMS Campus Club at Richmond. Or as TOMS members refer to her, the "Shoe-per glue".

Graf applied directly to TOMS in order to become a campus representative, she said. The company then told Graf she was responsible for establishing the club at Richmond, she said.

The club's leaders want to promote TOMS' mission through hosting events on campus, Graf said. She said the club would sponsor TOMS Shoes' One Day Without Shoes, an international movement which takes place on April 5. For 24 hours, participants go barefoot to raise awareness for poor children in developing countries, according to the company's website. According to the site, more than 250,000 people participated last year.

Graf said she hoped to organize a documentary screening about the TOMS mission.

The club also plans to hold a Style Your Sole event in March or April, Graf said. Students can bring their own pair of TOMS, or buy a pair through the club, and the club will have paints and sharpies available for students to personally decorate their pair of shoes, she said.

On the TOMS website, the shoes cost between $40 and $100 a pair. The website also features TOMS eyewear and a limited selection of apparel.

As of last September, TOMS Shoes had given away more than one million new pairs of the canvas shoes, according to its website.

"The movement can bring people together who care about the mission," Graf said. "And plus, you really can't go out on campus without seeing 20 people wearing TOMS."

Contact reporter Jenna Robinson at jenna.robinson@richmond.edu