3. As a Better Business Model
The idea for Toms Shoes hit Blake Mycoskie on a trip to Argentina in 2006: Sell a pair, give a pair to a needy child. "I met so many kids there who didn't have shoes and had nasty scrapes on their feet," he recalls. Mycoskie launched a line of simple, colorful canvas slip-ons modeled on the traditional alpargata worn by local farmers. Within a year, the concept had taken off (especially after celebrities like—Renée Zellweger started wearing Toms)—and Mycoskie organized his first "shoe drop," a tour of rural Argentina on which he handed out 10,000 pairs. Since then, he's given away another 100,000 on four continents. "The joy the kids express is hard to describe," he says. "They laugh and cry—and run around playing soccer."
From Reader's Digest
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