TOMS Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie fits shoes on a child in Argentina. TOMS has donated more than 150,000 pairs of shoes to children.

Washington — With every purchase of a pair of TOMS shoes, TOMS gives a new pair of shoes to a child in need. Since its founding in 2006, the company — based in Santa Monica, California — has donated more than 150,000 pairs of shoes to children in Argentina, South Africa, Ethiopia and Haiti, and to young hurricane victims in the United States.

TOMS Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie developed the idea for the company when he was traveling in Argentina and saw children without shoes to protect their feet. He returned to Argentina a few months later with 10,000 pairs of shoes, distributed through a local nongovernment organization (NGO) called LIFE (Luchemos para una Infancia Feliz y con Esperanza). That was the beginning of the company’s “one for one” model: sell a pair, give a pair away.

During TOMS “shoe drops” in each country, volunteers from the United States and local NGOs deliver shoes by hand, placing every single shoe on each child’s foot. TOMS has also partnered with local health authorities to coordinate shoe drops in Argentina with a vaccination clinic, a nutritional census and, at times, disaster assistance. Following floods in the province of Salta, TOMS hired a cargo airplane and flew into the disaster area to donate 6,000 pairs of shoes and assist thousands of people whose homes were destroyed.

On its Web site, the company cites the importance of shoes to health and well-being: shoes enable people to walk long distances to get food, water and medical help; prevent feet from getting cuts through which parasites can penetrate the skin; and enable children to attend school when shoes are a required part of their uniform, thus helping them build better lives.

“I thought I could create a more sustainable way to give shoes to people by being a for-profit business that was based on this ‘buy one, give one’ model” rather than by asking for charitable donations, Mycoskie said during a Clinton Global Initiative conference in early 2009. TOMS became profitable in 2008, and shoe sales in February 2009 were triple the sales level for the same month a year earlier. “We’ve proven that it works,” Mycoskie said. “You don’t have to start a charity to help people. You can actually start a business and help far more people.”

TOMS Shoes plans to give away 300,000 pairs of shoes to children in need in 2009 and to give away 1 million shoes by 2012.

TOMS Shoes is one of 11 finalists for the U.S. State Department’s Award for Corporate Excellence, which recognizes American companies that demonstrate good corporate citizenship, including a commitment to promoting opportunity and prosperity in the overseas communities where they do business.

The nonprofit organization Friends of TOMS coordinates shoe drops and other activities.

For more information, see the Web sites for TOMS Shoes and Friends of TOMS.