We’re excited to share more about TOMS shoe giving programs right here at home, in the United States.

Did you know? Nearly half of Native American children live in poverty, making rural reservation communities home to the some of the poorest minority groups in the United States. With the help of National Relief Charities, children living on Native American reservations are now getting the shoes they need to help protect their feet.*

We’ve spent the last year with National Relief Charities (NRC) learning about Native American reservation communities and the need for shoes. We learned that many of these families live in isolated, rural communities and that they struggle for access to fresh food, health care, jobs, clothing and basic supplies. The drive to work, grocery stores and health care centers can take two to three hours.

The shoes we give to these children are sometimes the first pair of well-fitting shoes they’ve ever owned. New shoes give them confidence in school, something echoed by our Giving Partners abroad. NRC tells us the parents are often active participants, allowing the TOMS distribution to become a community affair.

Our partnership with NRC is something we're proud of and excited for.  As with all of our global shoe-giving, we carefully vet and select Giving Partners based on both their approach to responsible giving (community involvement, integration with other programs and impacts, and sustainable giving over time), and on their logistical capabilities (usually organizations that work with a large number of children). Interested organizations – in the U.S. and around the world – can always get in touch with us at www.TOMS.com/GivingPartners.

Check out more images of TOMS shoe-giving with NRC on the TOMS Facebook page later this week....
Learn more about National Relief Charities...
*Source: nces.ed.gov

With TOMS Giving Partner IMA World Health...

Shoes are important, especially in developing countries where children walk for miles every day to get to school and clean water.

Shoes protect feet from rough paths, sharp objects, contaminated soil and the cold and heat. And in some places they’re a part of school uniforms, making them a requirement for children to attend class.

And yet, while those all are great benefits, it’s when shoes are combined with other efforts like de-worming medications, hygiene education and community health care that they become even more powerful tools in helping keep kids healthy and on track in their education.

That’s why TOMS is proud that our customers’ shoes are given through Giving Partners like IMA World Health in Haiti. IMA has been working to prevent soil-transmitted infections in Haiti since 2007.

In conjunction with schools and community centers, IMA provides education on healthy hygiene and sanitation practices as well as de-worming and other safe medications to help treat children with parasites. Since 2010, IMA has been integrating TOMS Shoes into their programs, helping further protect children from infections.





“These [TOMS] shoes provide added benefit to IMA’s program on several levels. First, the children love the shoes. You can see their faces light up when they put them on. They are genuinely excited.“

“But ultimately, shoes act as a simple barrier, providing an extra layer of protection against soil-transmitted infections. They are a wonderful complement to the medication being distributed through our program.” - Rick Santos, President & CEO of IMA World Health.

Thanks to the expertise of TOMS Giving Partners like IMA World Health and their experience in developing communities, TOMS Shoes are more than a gift, but a crucial piece of the puzzle for improving children’s health and access to education.

Want to learn more? Check out:

Web site for IMA World Health

Info from IMA about Neglected Tropical Diseases

When we first launched TOMS Eyewear, we wanted TOMS customers’ purchases to have a powerful impact in helping save and restore sight. With our Sight Giving Partner, Seva Foundation, we developed a giving model that would allow our customers’ purchases not only to help those in the greatest need, but also to do so responsibly through supporting locally based, sustainable and professional eye-care programs.

We were honored to learn that our customers’ giving would reach people that couldn’t afford care AND those that couldn’t even access it.





Eye camps are an exciting and especially important aspect of the work TOMS Sight Giving supports. For patients living in rural communities, getting to eye care services (usually located in the larger cities) can be a long, costly and often dangerous journey that many cannot afford to make. Without access to eye care, they remain blind or visually impaired for life, requiring assistance from their families, staying home from work or school and pushing them further into isolation, poverty and a life lived in darkness.

In Nepal, teams of Seva-supported eye care professionals travel from their base at Lumbini Eye Institute to reach remote communities throughout the country. They visit the same communities over time, setting up temporary clinics to screen patients, perform surgeries and provide follow-up, medical treatment and eye care education. They even work with the local leaders to develop plans for building permanent eye care clinics.





Recently, a TOMS-supported team traveled with Seva for two days through the mountainous region of the Himalayas to reach Taplejung, a remote district of Nepal. Before the team arrived, local students, teachers, health workers and community leaders alerted community members about the eye camp through local radio, pamphlets and good old word-of-mouth. When the Lumbini eye care team arrived, people were lined up anxious to be seen.

Over the next three days, the team examined hundreds of patients and performed sight-saving cataract, pterygium and lid surgeries. Each patient’s surgery, post-operative care, medicine and health education was supported by a TOMS Eyewear purchase.

Seva Foundation shared with us that most patients arriving at the eye camp were walking with the support of a guardian or walking aid. However, as patients headed home after surgery, they walked independently with smiling faces.



 

Here at TOMS, we're so humbled to see your support enabling eye care professionals to reach remote corners of the world with eyeglasses, surgery and medical treatment. It's truly amazing - so, thank you!!

To learn more about TOMS Eyewear's One for One Sight Giving Model, click here...

“New shoes provide hope to a child. And while hope is not necessarily measurable, it is one of the most meaningful attributes in our mission to break the cycle of poverty and disease,” explains the team from Partners In Health, a TOMS Giving Partner.



Children in Neno, Malawi receive their first pairs of TOMS shoes

Since 2007, Partners In Health has brought health, education and hope to the southern district of Neno in Malawi. They have built hospitals and health clinics throughout that region, but as they shared with us, "you can build a hospital and you can give people medicine, but if you don't address their other needs, people are not going to get better.”

Collaborating with local government and organizations, Partners In Health provides patients and their families with layers of support like food, shelter, school subsidies and health education. All of these factors help children, families and communities break the cycles of poverty and disease that have long affected districts like Neno.

Since becoming a TOMS Giving Partner in 2009, Partners In Health has distributed new shoes to children in Haiti, Malawi, Rwanda and Lesotho. For some of these children, these were the first shoes they’d ever owned or received.

The TOMS shoes not only help protect children’s feet from cuts, infection and diseases, but as the Partners In Health team tells us, “New shoes give children a sense of self, a feeling of pride, and the universal satisfaction that comes from feeling taken care of and provided for.”



“[The shoes] make me feel happy and [help me know] that everything will be OK,” beamed Alfred, a student in Neno who received his first pair of TOMS shoes.

We at TOMS are so grateful that the incredible support of our TOMS community can be extended to provide children with not only new shoes but also, through our Giving Partners, a feeling of being loved.

Thank you for supporting the One for One movement.

Want to see more? Check out this Facebook album of children receiving shoes in Malawi.

Thanks to you, TOMS Giving Partners and the One for One movement as a whole, we are transforming the lives of individuals and communities around the world.

These photos are some of our favorite illustrations of the impact of One for One…

Top 10 Giving Images of 2011



After Feed the Children becomes our first Giving Partner in Kenya, children there receive their first-ever TOMS shoes.




Since every TOMS Eyewear purchase helps give sight to a person in need, we adopted a Sight-Giving model carried out by Seva Foundation. TOMS-supported sight-saving and sight-restoration services have already begun in Cambodia, Nepal and Tibet.




In Cambodia, Hean Sok Him, 12, recently received his first pair of prescription glasses supported by a TOMS Eyewear purchase.




TOMS employees visited TOMS Giving Partner Hogar de Niños Enmanuel to help give distribute new TOMS shoes to the children serviced by this amazing organization.




How adorable is this? A young boy in Malawi checked out his new TOMS shoes just after he received them from TOMS Giving Partner Goods for Good.




We were so excited to see the first images that illustrate TOMS Eyewear purchases supporting locally-based quality eye care. TOMS Sight Giving Partner, Seva Foundation, services a network of hospitals and clinics, and TOMS Eyewear purchases are helping them reach more people in need.




TOMS Giving Partner Operation Blessing International gives new TOMS shoes to children in Peru.




Mrs. Chab (pictured here) underwent cataract surgery in Cambodia because of a TOMS Eyewear purchase. She said, "I am very happy after being able to see again, and I am so thankful to TOMS and to the surgical team for giving me a new life.”




Happiness in Haiti after children received new TOMS shoes from IMA World Health, a TOMS Giving Partner.

For the first time, children in the Philippines received new TOMS shoes through Giving Partner WE International, Philippines.

To those of you who’ve met a member of the TOMS family, or really to anyone who checks up with news from HQ via the blog, email, Facebook, or Twitter (you can imagine our struggle with the 140-character limit), you know it’s rare we’re at a loss for words.

But when it comes to our Giving Side, there are some moments that leave us so moved, empowered and proud that we’re actually speechless. That’s why we often leave it to the TOMS Giving team to relay to everyone (you guys and the rest of us at HQ) the highlights of giving shoes, and now sight, to people in need.

We hope you’ll take a minute and think about the impact we’re all having on the lives of people in need because of your purchases, your support and your help in spreading the word about One for One so it can continue to help change the world.

Here are some of our favorite quotes of this year from TOMS Giving Partners, children who’ve received TOMS shoes, people who’ve been given the gift of sight, and the TOMS family who’ve been blessed to see the impact firsthand. …

Top 10 Giving Quotes of 2011



"Today you will get a pair of new TOMS shoes. And with these shoes comes the responsibility to go to school, to study hard, to treat all of those around you with respect, to be proud of who you are and to go out and do good in your community.”
- Vivian, Volunteer Executive Director at Hogar de Niños Enmanuel, to children about to receive new TOMS shoes, Honduras




"There is no reason for people to be unnecessarily blind. The majority of blinding conditions in developing countries are either preventable or curable."
- Dr. Chundak Tenzing, TOMS Sight Giving Partner Seva Foundation, Nepal, Tibet & Cambodia

"I see the children walking up with a pair of shoes on them that they never had before. And every step is, 'thank you, thank you, thank you.' With big smiles on their faces, they have tripped over the joy of looking down at their feet covered in a new pair of shoes."
- Sister Ethel, Missionvale Care Centre, TOMS Shoe Giving Partner, South Africa

"When I saw my granddaughter for the first time [since she was 6 months old] I was so excited. I thought, 'She is so beautiful!'"
- Hean Chanthy, recipient of a TOMS-supported cataract surgery, Cambodia

"The shoes mean 'something new; something mine; something that hasn’t been passed down to me from my brother or sister; something that I don’t have just because school says I need this type of shoe; these are something new and special that was given to me just because.’"
- Ruthie from Coprodeli, TOMS Shoe Giving Partner, Peru

"... I’m excited because when I woke up in the morning, I did not know when I’ll have something like this," shares a student in Kenya. A teacher adds, “…I can tell you, these children will not sleep today. They will be talking about those shoes the whole night!”
– Feed The Children, TOMS Shoe Giving Partner, Kenya

“World Sight Day is a day of celebration, where we light not candles but hearts with compassion…a day when the sun shines brighter, and the heart feels lighter to know that someone, somewhere smiles and enjoys the freedom of light through your One for One gift of sight.”
– Dr. Chundak Tenzing from Seva Foundation to the TOMS family, Santa Monica

"Some of the parents almost cried when they saw their children wearing shoes. This is because some of the children were wearing the shoes for the first time in their entire lives."
- Staff member from World Vision, TOMS shoe Giving Partner, at a TOMS shoe distribution

“As part of the TOMS community, we are a part of empowering young leaders to thrive and grow to be change-makers, wherever they are.”
– Sevag, TOMS Employee, after returning from a Giving trip with TOMS Giving Partner Hogar de Niños Enmanuel, Honduras

“It has been a long time since I could see the little things. Now, I can read the textbooks and make out small letters that I couldn’t see before. Going back to school and being able to see the students, the words, everything – there are no words to express my joy. I am so grateful to the doctors and to you for helping me. Thank you.”
– Monkung, recipient of a TOMS-supported cataract surgery, Cambodia

Name: Hean Sok Him
Age:12
Location:Battambang Eye Unit, Cambodia
Giving Partner:SEVA Foundation

We just received this story from Seva Foundation, and were thrilled to hear the impact TOMS Eyewear purchases are having on individual lives and communities. As you will read, TOMS Eyewear purchases are not only helping save and restore sight, but they are also supporting the work of locally-based eye care programs that are investing in the education of their community through training and outreach programs.

While at school in Cambodia, 12-year-old Hean Sok Him was having trouble seeing the chalkboard from afar and reading books in class. He would complain to his parents that he couldn’t see properly and did not like going to school. He no longer wanted to play with friends during the day.

Through the support of TOMS Eyewear purchases, the Battambang Eye Unit staff were able to conduct school training sessions to educate teachers in Hean Sok Him’s community about basic eye health and how to screen students for potential eye issues. After the training session, Hean Sok Him’s teacher screened the class and found that Hean Sok Him wasn’t able to see clearly. The teacher sent him and his mom to the Battambang Eye Unit, a Seva Foundation supported clinic, for a full eye exam.

The staff at Battambang Eye Unit welcomed Hean Sok Him and his mother and gave him a full eye exam and refraction. They found that Hean Sok Him was in desperate need of prescription glasses. Through the support of a TOMS Eyewear purchase, Hean Sok Him’s exam was covered and he was given his very first pair of prescription glasses.

Immediately, Hean Sok Him noticed an improvement in his sight, saying with excitement, "I promise to go to school to study regularly!" Both he and his mother were very happy and expressed great thanks to the staff and TOMS.

Thank you for helping bring sight to children like Hean Sok Him!

www.seva.org
eyewear/our-movement/

 

“With new shoes children are better protected against preventable diseases and infections and are also given a sense of dignity. The kids are ecstatic and so grateful for their new shoes!” - Geni Psinakis, Director of Development, TOMS Giving Partner WE International Philippines

Thank you for your support. Watch as children in the Philippines are given their first pair of TOMS Shoes.

Hogar de Niños Enmanuel is an orphanage in Honduras that is home to more than 80 children. They have an impressive leadership program where older kids lead large projects at the orphanage – from making and selling tortilla in the community, to helping arrange the logistics and giving of TOMS shoes to children at impoverished schools throughout the area.

While helping Hogar de Niños give shoes, TOMS VP of Creative, Felipe, was inspired by the passion, humility and joy that the staff and children at Hogar de Niños.

I kept forgetting that some of the volunteers who we were helping give TOMS shoes with were children from the orphanage. It was so amazing to see the trickle down effect at Hogar de Niños. These kids who are given TOMS are also turning around and helping other kids so selflessly.  The giving didn’t stop at one child, the same kids were reaching out to do good and help others.

 I was also struck that the giving of TOMS shoes went beyond just the physical shoe.  I hadn’t realized the emotional benefits giving a pair of new shoes brought to children…how it affected them in their emotional growth, how they felt valued and were emotionally lifted.  Teachers shared with me that they saw an improvement in schoolwork and the way students interacted with each other.  After a shoe distribution took place, teachers said they felt empowered and more positive about their role at the school.  I was humbled that this wasn’t just about giving shoes.  That the partnership between TOMS customers, TOMS and Giving Partners was having a much greater effect. 

I am thankful that together we’re supporting a movement toward kindness and empowering children and community members.

From our customers, to our staff, to the incredible organizations that give our shoes with love - we are grateful for the positive impact we have had together across the world.

Dr. Chundak Tenzig is the Director of the Seva Sight Program, an initiative from Seva Foundation, TOMS first Sight Giving Partner.

www.seva.org