Hollywood Popular Artists

Apr 10th 2012, 15:26

If you're looking forward to running around barefoot all summer, then perhaps the TOMS plight sounds dramatic to you. For millions of people exposed to disease, injury and socioeconomic disadvantage on account of improper footwear, however, the issue is dead serious. Today, walk a mile in their bare feet in honor of the fifth annual TOMS One Day Without Shoes. Your ensuing blisters may even warrant an online shoe-shopping trip, just in time for spring ...

TOMS founder Blake Mycowski -- calls today his "favorite day of the year," saying, "Taking your shoes off for that one day will help create a lot of awareness, not only for what we are doing at TOMS, but for what you might want to do or what someone else is doing to help in global poverty." And it really is that simple: Ditch your kicks for one day -- today -- to provoke questions, conversation and social change. Check out MTV's recent interview with him:

 

TOMS has ten billion (close enough) promotional tools to help you make an impact -- from social media banners to t-shirts, stickers to street stencils, so you can leave a mark loud and clear (and often). Download the One Day Without Shoes app to share your photo and collect your facts, or print out the well-sourced One Day Without Shoes pocket info card, downloadable here, to keep stats like these on hand:

+ 30,000 people live in just one landfill in the Philippines, where children walk over broken glass, syringes and debris each day.

+ 4,000,000 people have podoconiosis, a debilitating and disfiguring disease caused by living barefoot in volcanic soil.

+ 1,890,000 Kenyan children are infected with jiggers, burrowing fleas that cause painful lesions.

+ 740,000,000 people are affected by hookworm, a soil-transmitted parasite that can cause intestinal pain, weakness and cognitive impairment.

Imagine if you weren't allowed to go to school for a dress code violation -- because you and your family couldn't afford shoes. You wouldn't get an education, wouldn't be privy to prime opportunities, would likely fall into a poverty spiral and consequently might not be able to afford shoes for your own kids' feet. The cycle continues ... until someone stops it.

Dramatic? Not in the slightest. Kick off your heels and join the TOMS revolution right now.

Media files:
toms2.jpg (image/jpeg)
toms.jpg (image/jpeg)
toms-70x53.jpg (image/jpeg)