Southern Hospitality

Twelve days on the road, five events down and Team Southeast is on a roll! Our first event of the tour was in Baton Rouge, LA in the most unlikely of places: a bar! We had a great time with Ashton, a former TOMS intern and sold 24 pairs of shoes. We had a day off the next day so Michelle and I decided to head to New Orleans since we had never been. There are many areas that have been rebuilt and restored, but 10 yards away, there are devastated, boarded up houses with the body counts still spray painted on the doors and heaps of trash and rubbish. It was a unique experience being able to drive through a city that TOMS will soon be impacting on U.S. Shoe Drops in the coming months. At 6:00 a.m. the next morning we drove north to Ruston, LA, where we had a great event at Louisiana Tech. Our amazing high school campus rep managed to pull off getting the space at the college and get free pizza for the event, where we sold 26 pairs of shoes! We left Louisiana immediately following the event though, because we had a 13-hour drive ahead of us to Florence, AL. The University of North Alabama was great and we sold another 26 pairs of shoes. Like the entire Southeast, UNA was a beautiful campus! The coolest thing about UNA is that their mascot is a lion, so they have live lions living on campus! A little trippy, but awesome. Our next destination was Oxford, MS which was nothing short of amazing! We sold a record-breaking 126 pairs of shoes at Ole’ Miss and even managed to snag a spot on Fox News! Our campus rep did an awesome job promoting the event and getting Greek Life involved. Overall, it was a huge success!

We were sad to leave Oxford but the next day we found ourselves in the beautiful Birmingham, AL at Samford University. We were surprised at how many people were already wearing TOMS Shoes or previously knew about TOMS. We sold 10 pairs of shoes, which was quite a step down from the day before, but all the same, 10 more children will have shoes because of it. I have grown to love life on the road and the “southern hospitality” we’ve experienced in this region. I’m excited for what is to come, but I’m savoring the moments of today, knowing that our work is impacting the children of tomorrow.