“The sole purpose of the company is to give,” said musician PJ Johnson.
What Johnson was talking about was TOMS Shoes, a nonprofit organization that donates a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair purchased.
Last Friday, Johnson performed with two other musicians from Nashville, Tenn., Tim Schurrer and Adam Agin, at the O’Connor Campus Center for a “Style your Sole” event benefiting TOMS Shoes.
“The event will help raise money for a shoe drop planned this summer in Ethiopia and in selected parts of the United States,” said Courtney Walsh ’10, co-president of the Colgate chapter of Amnesty International, which sponsored the event.
“The mission of TOMS Shoes is to make life more comfortable for other people,” said Justin Sylvester, a TOMS intern. “In South Africa we gave away 50,000 pairs of shoes and in Argentina we gave away 10,000 pairs of shoes.”
The organization has been around for about a year and a half.
About 75 students attended the event in the COOP TV room, many saying they believed in the cause and liked having the chance to decorate the shoes they bought.
“It was really nice to be able to buy shoes knowing that it is going to help a child get a pair,” said Annemarie Papandrea ’08.
TOMS is stopping at 45 schools as part of its first national college tour.
“We sold a lot more shoes than we were initially expecting to based on presales,” said Kaitlin Tufts ’10, co-president of Amnesty International at Colgate. Organizers were still taking orders online, so they did not yet know how much they earned through the fundraiser.
For more information on TOMS Shoes, visit www.tomsshoes.com