TOMS: The Gift of Shoes and Sight

Tom's Charcoal Canvas Men's Desert Oxfords

I love the fact that when you buy a pair of TOMS shoes, another pair of shoes will be donated to a child in need around the world.  In 2006, American traveler Blake Mycoskie befriended children in Argentina and found they had no shoes to protect their feet. Wanting to help, he created TOMS Shoes, a company that would match every pair of shoes purchased with a pair of new shoes given to a child in need.  One for One.   As of September 2010, TOMS had given over 1,000,000 new shoes to children around the world.  In many countries, shoes can protect children from serious diseases, stunted physical and mental development, and even death resulting from hookworm, podoconiosis, jiggers, and tetanus. TOMS makes it easy to buy a pair of shoes you will love and to enable a child somewhere in the world to get perhaps their first pair of shoes ever!  Furthermore, all shoes produced for TOMS are made in fair wage factories that do not employ children.

For a man, this year I love TOMS Charcoal Canvas Men's Desert Oxfords ($65.00)   The Movember Grey Black Men's Classics are stylish as well ($58.00, raises awareness for cancers affecting men).  For a woman, I personally love the TOMS Navy Vegan Wrap Boots ($98.00).  I also am a fan of the TOMS Purple Houndstooth Women's Classics ($54.00). 

If shoes are not your thing, you can also buy a pair of TOMS eyeglasses.  For every pair purchased, TOMS will either donate funds for medical treatment, a pair of eyeglasses, or sight-saving surgery for a person in need around the world.

Finally, while you can find TOMS at many department stores, I suggest making sure your default browser is Goodsearch and then buying directly from the TOMS website;  an automatic 5% donation will be made from TOMS to your charity of choice on Goodsearch!

Goodsearch: Shop and Dine For your Favorite Cause!

 

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love Goodsearch and the impact it can have on a plethora of charities.  And your power to raise money for charities becomes exponentially higher during the holiday season, as you can earn money while searching for holiday gifts, buying holiday gifts, buying holiday plane flights, and eating out at your favorite restaurants.   Extraordinarily, raising money for your favorite charity through Goodsearch costs you nothing!

It is so easy to start raising money for your favorite cause.  Just download the Yahoo! powered GoodSearch.com as your default search engine and they'll donate about a penny to your favorite cause every time you do a search.  In addition, do all of your shopping through their online shopping mall, GoodShop.com, where you can shop at more than 2,400 top online retailers and a percentage of your purchases will go to the charity or school of your choice. You pay the same price as you normally would, but a donation goes to your cause!

Finally, you can also enroll in the GoodDining program. Eat at over 10,000 participating restaurants nationwide and you can earn up to 6% of every dollar spent on the meal as a donation for your charity or school.  As a Dallas native, I checked out the list for dining options there, and most of my favorite restaurants are listed as part of the GoodDining program!  If you're a Dallasite, how awesome is it that you can eat at staples like Jorge's, Three Sheets, La Duni, and Villa-O to raise money for your favorite charity.

As of today, 102,676 charities are registered with Goodsearch.  As an animal lover, I have been raising money through Goodsearch for  Animal Rescue Corps.  Whether you want to raise money for animal welfare, poverty in Africa, the arts, or welfare in the USA, there is a cause out there that you can be supporting merely by downloading the Goodsearch toolbar and shopping/dining for a cause.  The key to maximizing your impact is to make sure that Goodsearch is your default browser (instructions are on the Goodsearch website). Signing up for Goodsearch is so easy and, when used collectively by like-minded individuals, its effects can be significant and far-reaching.

Here's the web site — http://www.goodsearch.com. You can also read about GoodSearch in the NY Times, Oprah Magazine, CNN, ABC News and the Wall Street Journal.