My friend Daniel rolled up his pant leg one day to reveal his sweet new kicks. “Check out these babies.” They were TOMS. TOMS Shoes. Shoes for Tomorrow. It’s a shoe company based out of Santa Monica, California, with factories in China, Argentina, and soon Brazil and Ethiopia. “Oh, so it’s that kind of company.” Nope, this is what’s special about TOMS. Blake Mycoskie, creator and designer, gives a pair of shoes to a child in need every time you buy a pair of shoes. This is how he puts it on their web site under “Our Cause”:

“I created TOMS with a singular mission: to make life more comfortable. TOMS accomplishes this through its unique shoe and commitment to match every pair purchased with a donated pair to a child in need…no complicated formula. It’s simple…you buy a pair of TOMS and I give a pair to a child on your behalf.”

So, you can buy a sweet pair of new kicks. Or, you can buy a sweet pair of new kicks and be giving a sweet pair of little poonum kicks to a child that needs them, too. Here are pictures of them passing out shoes in South Africa last November. They gave out 10,000 pairs in Argentina in 2006.

You might be thinking that the shoes must be exceptionally expensive to pay for the service they provide. I just bought a pair, the burlap action going on in the picture on the right (very comfortable and make me feel like I should be on safari). They were $48. Not ridiculously expensive, eh? Not even really that expensive at all, but ’round about the price you’d be paying normally; and remember you most likely wouldn’t be giving a pair to a barefoot baby boy.

So, in the market for new shoes? Peruse TOMS’ site and buy a pair for you and a child at the same time. At the check out enter this special discount code that TOMS gave me to pass out to get $5.00 off:

1PAIR4FEET