New group celebrates unofficial TOMS Day

Harris Googe has enough pairs of TOMS Shoes to wear a different style Monday through Friday.

The sophomore chairwoman for the unofficial UNC TOMS club will don a pair today alongside many in an attempt to promote the shoe company, as today has been deemed the first unofficial TOMS Day by the campus group.

TOMS Shoes is a for-profit company that operates on a “One for One” premise. For every shoe purchased, one is donated to a child in need. More than 150,000 pairs of shoes have been donated since the company’s start three years ago.

Googe credits the recent popularity boost of the shoes at UNC to a campus visit in September by Blake Mycoskie, who founded TOMS Shoes.

“I got the idea after seeing people in my classes,” Googe said. “I wanted to reward people for wearing them every day.”

Those spotted by a TOMS representative wearing the brand will be entered in a drawing for prizes, including gift cards to Franklin Street businesses.

Googe said the club aims to spread the purpose of TOMS and hopes to become an official campus organization next semester.

She said she plans to spread more than the company’s philanthropic message and also wants to open a dialogue about business ventures that are socially conscious.

“We want to inspire people to do things that are similar, especially in the business world,” she said. “You can be socially conscious and still be successful.”

Toots and Magoo, a Franklin Street store and the only TOMS retailer in Chapel Hill, has witnessed this success.

“They fly out of here,” said Cheryl Jernigan-Wicker, one of the owners of the store. “We sell them as fast as we can get them.”

She said she noticed traffic pick up immediately after Mycoskie’s campus visit.

The store keeps about six to seven styles in stock at one time, and they are always in high demand, she said.

But Jernigan-Wicker also said the shoes’ popularity goes beyond the recent campus trend. She cited a frequent customer in her 70s who has at least six pairs.

Some students said the new TOMS Day is no different from any other.

“I would probably wear them anyways,” said Brye Balkum, a freshman who plans to participate in the event.

Balkum bought her first pair in July without knowing about the TOMS business plan, but then bought a second pair when she discovered it.

“You are contributing to someone else’s life somewhere else in the world and you don’t even know them,” she said.

Jernigan-Wicker calls purchasing TOMS a “feel-good buying experience.”

“Everybody loves the idea that they can do something to help someone else in the world,” she said.



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