Starting my day off on the ASU Campus!
Yesterday (4/5/11) I joined in the TOMS Shoes campaign in their day of awareness "One Day Without Shoes." I absolutely love my TOMS and I thought to myself, "this is a great program, I should join in and show my support." With that in mind, I left for the ASU campus barefoot. Walking through my garage to my car, the thought crossed my mind, "am I nuts?" because the ground where I was walking was shaded and absolutely ice cold. But, I had made a commitment to go barefoot, so I was going to stick to it. The trouble with committing to something like this is that you never know exactly what you're getting yourself into. Going without shoes sounds easy enough. Sure I can join in, make a day of it, probably blog about my participation later. But like most things meant to make an impact on others, yesterday made an impact on me.
Once I arrived on campus, like I do every day, I jumped out of my car in a rush. Quickly, I realized that rushing on asphalt while barefoot is a bad idea for the uncalloused foot. I'm used to sore feet after being in heels for hours on end, but never have I wished to have heels so bad before. Anything to put between my feet and the ground would have been nice. Now I know that people become more calloused to the ground after being barefoot for extended periods of time, but for my tender feet, after being in shoes all winter, were very uncomfortable. Now I don't say all of this to complain, but rather to point out what I learned about how important a pair of shoes really is. There was broken glass near the parking lot where I walk to class, and I couldn't help but think what people had to walk around in places where shoes are not even an option. It's hard to believe that something we take for granted every day, as small as a pair of shoes, could be so important.
Yesterday made me a TOMS shoes wearer for the rest of my life. Their commitment to donating one-for-one is vital and I'm glad they've found a way to do it. I hope that I can donate more than just a purchase of a pair of shoes in the future! I hope, also, that more people were affected by going without shoes and were moved to make a difference. Here's the link to the TOMS website in case you were thinking of checking out their amazing brand: http://www.toms.com/
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