I stumbled upon the great site of Tom’s Shoes due to a post on the Lifehacker blog. Tom’s Shoes, a company founded by Blake Mycoskie, focuses on addressing poverty and health issues by donating a pair of shoes to a child in need for each pair of shoes purchased.

The concept was conceived as Blake was traveling through poor villages in Argentina and realized that he could create a difference by forming a shoe company. He decided to fashion the shoe after the local alpargatas but with bold colors and artistic styles. He spent two months seeking Argentina fabric and shoe makers and debuted a collection of 15 styles in June 2006. By fall of 2006 he had sold 10,000 pairs of shoes and gave away 10,000 pairs with a handful of volunteers alongside 2,200 miles of Argentinan countryside.

As of February of this year the self-financed company had orders from 300 stores and was turning a profit. On top of that, 240 customers had offered to pay to go volunteer resulting in Mycoskie starting to create a sister company that will offer $2,000 vacations consisting of two days of sightseeing and 4 days of volunteering.