TOMS Giving Trips: New Shoes for Children in Need

Evita is an employee at TOMS (http://www.toms.com) Shoes, the Los Angeles-based company with giving at its core. For every product purchased, TOMS will help a person in need (https://www.children.org/toms). One for One®. As a member of the TOMS Giving Team, Evita serves as a key liaison between TOMS and Children International, which has been a TOMS Shoe Giving Partner since 2013. TOMS now provides new shoes to sponsored children in nine of CI’s countries of operation. In March 2014, Evita had the opportunity to visit Children International’s programming in the Dominican Republic on a TOMS Giving Trip.

TOMS Giving Trips are a unique and exciting experience for our company’s employees. TOMS Giving Partners like Children International work hard year-round to distribute shoes as part of their community-development programs. Giving Trips provide TOMS employees and contest winners with the chance to visit our partners in the field and help them give new shoes to children in need. TOMS Giving Trips are way more than just a trip. It is a time of learning, contributing and experiencing the TOMS movement in action.

My colleagues and I began our week with Children International at the Lawrence T. Phelan Community Center at La Caleta in the Dominican Republic. The beautiful center – so starkly modern compared to the surrounding community – vibrated with the sound of playing children. Our trip quite purposefully coincided with CI’s annual Easter gift distribution. That day, children and their parents lined up outside the center and collected a pair of pants, a shirt, socks, three bars of soap and a new pair of TOMS Shoes.

As part of the distribution, some TOMS employees aided incredible local volunteers in registering and checking in children and helping sort and pack items in the stock room. But the majority of us sat splay-legged on the floor in front of a child in a chair, fitting each one with a pair of new TOMS Shoes. After a few hours of distribution and many happy children with their Easter gifts in hand (or on foot), we were finally able to go outside and play!

While many of us on this trip spoke barely a word of Spanish, we did bring along bubbles, soccer balls, face paint and smiles – the universal language of children everywhere. After finishing drawing a flower on a little girl’s face, I was handed the string by a little boy for a homemade kite flying above us. It was constructed from some sticks and a discarded plastic bag with a tail made of a long strip of plastic. I’ve never seen a kite fly so high. It struck me then what this center – and the others CI has built around the world – means to so many children. A Children International community center is a safe space and a happy place for children to receive access to vital health and education services, but also a place for kids to just be kids.

As the week progressed, we distributed more Easter gift packages at four other CI centers in the Dominican Republic and also had the opportunity to see CI’s programs in action. At the Michael Gores and Michael Moll Community Centers in Mendoza, we met with youth on the brink of employment thanks to CI’s Into Employment program. A young man in slacks and a pressed, collared shirt stood up to proudly share with us about the new job he would start next week at a big call center in the area. Later in the week, the Into Employment youth training in hospitality catered an incredible last meal for us at the Hope Springs Community Center in Bayaguana.

The youth volunteers (themselves sponsored children) invited us to participate in the program they run for the younger kids at the center. Volunteer teens between the ages of 16 and 18 spend their afternoons creating lessons and teaching kids about the history of the Dominican Republic. They play games and engage the younger kids in activities that challenge and stimulate them. Most importantly, these youths play a key role in setting examples of leadership, dedication and perseverance for the kids growing up in their community.

I asked one young teen why she volunteers. She responded, “This program has helped me realize I want to be a teacher when I grow up. Also, it’s my responsibility to give back because I’ve been given so much.”As my colleagues and I returned to work the following week, we were filled with stories about all the wonderful children, families, staff and volunteers we met – rejuvenated and reminded why we work hard at TOMS. It’s our responsibility, because we’ve been given so much.