When it comes to understanding hardship, it isn’t easy to put the shoe on the other foot.

But when Blake Mycoskie took a trip down to Argentina for a polo game, he quickly realized he needed to do exactly that for the children in the impoverished villages that surrounding the affluent communities. After seeing that they didn’t even have shoes to protect their feet, Blake decided to launch a company which provides a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair it sells. And thus, TOMS Shoes was born. TOMS – a moniker for “shoes of tomorrow” – is now one of the hottest shoe brands for men and women in the country and has donated hundreds of thousands of shoes to children in Argentina, Africa, and the U.S. Its motto “one for one” symbolizes how this charitable company based in Venice, California, profoundly impacts the life of the purchaser and the recipient and connects both: soul to sole.

At Vivanista, we have innumerable philanthropic heroes and Chief Shoegiver, Blake, is one of them. Here, he shares the TOMS story:

Change a child’s life: Check out new styles and pick up your own pair of TOMS