Cleaning Out

February 5, 2011

I bought my first pair of TOMS Shoes on Thursday. The motivation came from several places: a friend recently dug another friend’s used TOMS out of the trash (he had sworn never to buy a pair; rummaging through someone else’s castoffs apparently doesn’t fall into that category), another friend had acquired a pair during Christmas, and also I just wanted some.

But there’s really more to it than that.  I’m finding that there are two motivations for purchasing a pair of TOMS:

1. They’re really “cool”.  (But be honest.  If you were the only one walking around with a shoe that looked like this:

it wouldn’t be “cool”.  Unique, perhaps.)

I guess that’s ok; in a sort of existential (a word I’m using as it was originally used: “What you do defines you”) way, it doesn’t really matter whether you bought the shoes because they were cool or not.  They’re still putting a pair of shoes on a poor child’s feet in Africa or South America or Asia.  And that’s what you say when you encounter that (increasingly rare) ignorant fool who questions the coolness of such a shoe, even if it wasn’t the reason you bought them.  You bought them because they’re trendy and hip.  Like you.

2. You know you’re doing something good by providing a pair of shoes for a child who needs them.

It all does come down to this, though, doesn’t it?  Even if you really don’t care for the way they look, or are turned off by anything trendy (ooh pick me pick me!) that you didn’t like before it was popular because you’re enamored with the idea of being “counter-cultural”, you can get behind this.  Helping a child in need is helping a child indeed, as the saying might have gone if it had originated with TOMS.

That second reason has inspired me.  Lending a hand (or a shoe, which is for a foot) to someone in need can be something of a high.

When I got back to school Thursday evening, wearing my new Shoes-That-Make-a-Difference with pride, I looked at the pile of footwear in my closet.  I said to myself, “You disgust me”, not because I’m a man who has as many shoes as his girlfriend, but because I’m a human being who has a dozen pairs of shoes and just bought another to provide someone with one pair.

So I started cleaning out. I set up a free clothes basket outside my bedroom door earlier this semester for the periodic elimination of unnecessary members of my wardrobe.  Thursday evening, while wearing my TOMS, I placed every pair of shoes I deemed unnecessary into that basket and never looked back.  (I kept the sandals I bought in Zimbabwe last summer, a pair of old running shoes and a pair of hiking boot-shoe things.)  There were immediate dividends: two guys on my hall needed one type of shoe or another, and I was able to provide that.

Really, then, one pair of TOMS for me provided three other people with shoes that they didn’t have before. This may become an addiction.  I’ve already decided that at some point in the next two years I want to give away every unnecessary article of clothing that I own (I’m working on a list of “necessary” clothes right now.  Stay tuned.).

Then, today, I did something I planned to do months ago. You see, when I came home from Africa last summer, feeling inspired and romantic about helping orphans, I decided to sponsor one of the boys who had picked me out as his good friend during my time there.  I emailed the church in Maryland that organizes these sponsorships and they sent me a sponsorship packet.  Which has since graced my bulletin board and gathered dust.  It’s only $25/month.  That’s significantly less than Compassion International, which is quite cheap itself.  So today, as I was cleaning my room, I took down the sponsorship packet, filled out the pledge card and stuck $25 in cash into the accompanying envelope.  I licked it shut and I’ll mail it Monday.

All because I wanted a trendy pair of shoes.