TOMS Shoes » VAGABOND

vagabond return spring 2009

admin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:03:02 +0000

A couple weeks ago, we welcomed home the Spring 2009 Vagabonds from their 12-week tour across the United States. They had spent the past few months visiting high school and college campuses hosting Style Your Sole events and sharing the One for One mission. Now, see them reunite at HQ and hear them reflect on their journey.

Catch up on the entire season on the TOMS YouTube Channel.

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lean on me, when you’re not strong

kelliSW — Fri, 22 May 2009 12:07:52 +0000

I’ll be your friend, I’ll help you carry on. For it won’t be long til I’m gonna need somebody to lean on.

This verse could very well be our motto for being a Vagabond. We are all the most eclectic and different group of people. Many of us would not be friends had we met on the street. However, this experience with the good and the bad, has bonded us for life. We can all identify with almost every emotion the other felt for the past 5 months. We really did lean on one another and each and every one of these people have become my family.

It is with a heavy heart that I say “goodbye” to you TOMS fanatics out there that enjoy reading about our adventures. And with an even heavier heart and hung head that I say goodbye to all of the other Vagabonds and the TOMS family in general. All of you passionate about TOMS out there, you inspire US! Meeting you, feeling your love, being welcomed into your schools and homes was an honor. The acceptance we got just by being TOMS vagabonds was beyond amazing.

We have shared the hardest and greatest of times together and you guys have been there to have a birds eye view of all of our adventures. We cried, we laughed, we fell and we got back up. Many times, you guys helped us back up. Your passion invigorated us when our drives were too long or our heads were cloudy. From the bottom of everything in my heart, I thank each and every one of you that we encountered on this tour.

TOMS is forever the collective love of my life and being a part of this process was the greatest adventure I ever got myself into! Getting thousands of shoes on the feet of children in need is the coolest and most fabulous accomplishment I think I have made in life. I couldn’t have done any of it without the help of the entire Vagabond group.

Team Southwest rocked the west coast back and forth and even took our moves into Oklahoma and Texas. We had more fun with everyone out there than we can put into words! We spread love and compassion to everyone in our path, and they gave it back to us ten fold. Bernadette treated us well, we drove her hard! This “season” in our lives might be over, but we will forever be your TOMS girls. Keep us in your hearts, as we will continue to keep you in ours forever!

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so long, farewell, we hate to say goodbye

justinNW — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:27:49 +0000

HA! I’m back. I bet you thought that you were rid of me after last week. I bet you thought you had heard all about Team Ndubs plans for the future and you were never gonna hear from us again. Well, I’ve got news for you. We are like a recurring dream. You know, like the one wear you’re at the first day of school in just your underwear. Except, you should be much more excited about us! Imagine that instead of showing up at school in your underwear you showed up and you got to see the coolest people ever. We’re that kind of recurring dream. Anyway, last week was our last week of tour. But now we’re back in the office and reliving all the incredible memories that we had on tour. Every time we talk to someone in the office, the first question seems to be, “any good stories?” We have lots.

Like the time that Carolyn tried to get a sundae. She asked for hot fudge. The ice cream lady, looked at Carolyn as if she was crazy(which is a completely reasonable thing to do at times… this not being one of those times), and asked “do you want the hot fudge on top?” Carolyn, baffled, responded, “I can’t imagine eating it any other way.”
“But don’t you know it’ll make your ice cream melt?!” pleaded our sincerely concerned friend, “It’s HOT fudge.” Turns out hot fudge will make ice cream melt unless you do something completely ridiculous, like… I don’t know… Eat the ice cream in a timely manner? Just a thought. It worked for Carolyn… but it was truly a race against time.

I wish I could tell you all the stories, but you probably had to be there for most of them. In fact, you probably had to be there for that last one. But it’s alright.

So. This time it’s for real. This dream won’t be recurring anymore. Hopefully we’ll still see some of you from time to time. But this is the last time you’ll see us here. You know you’ll miss us. It’s ok. Don’t cry. You’re making me uncomfortable.

Peace

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all good things must come to an end

justinNW — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:54:06 +0000

I can’t talk about what happened here.

*sigh* it’s our last week. We cannot believe it. We have been on the road for 11 weeks. It is craziness. Right now, I’m listening to Ana belt out that terrible Taylor Swift song about Romeo or whatever for the 743rd time, and honestly I’m gonna miss the mad rush to get my headphones in every time that song comes on the radio. As ridiculous as it is, I think I speak for all of Team Ndubs when I say that as much as we’re ready to be home with family and friends we’re still gonna miss life on the road. The endless drives, the overwhelming smell of manure when passing farms, the constant search for Chick fil A’s….

…and the soul-crushing disappointment when we find one only to realize they’re closed because it’s Sunday which we didn’t realize because days don’t mean anything anymore. We’ll miss being able to feel OK about not showering for days at a time… actually that was more the girls… and I won’t miss that part… We’ll miss seeing snow one day and 70 degrees the next. We’ll miss never knowing if we’re gonna be sleeping in a bed, on a couch, or on a floor. We’ll miss trips to Denny’s where they get every single one of our orders wrong. We’ll miss singing along to Celine, Disney, and the Beatles. We’ll miss Jill, our GPS, and her attempts to take us down dirt roads and taking us to banks and Walmarts that don’t actually exist. But most of all we’ll miss all of the amazing people we’ve met along the way. You guys are the ones that made this trip one of the coolest experiences of our lives.

Now we’ll soon be parting ways. Ana is planning to audition for the next season of American Idol; Carolyn has already nailed down a job selling knives on QVC from 2am-6am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; and Justin is going to a position at the American Society of Sarcasm. It’s been real. It’s been good. Some would even say, it’s been real good.

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the rescue with invisible children: oprah rescued us

hajarMW — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:41:38 +0000

Just pinch me because this past week was an amazing dream! While in Chicago for a few events we got to be part of history and join the Invisible Children Rescue Riders and Roadies to the final rescue that happened on the morning of May 1st.

It was a hopeful goal to see if Oprah Winfrey would come to our rescue. What an adrenaline rush jumping from place to place and getting the word out to onlookers while standing outside of Harpo Studios! We made new friends who were truly living the Vagabond lifestyle: many groups traveled from city to city for this global occasion… and there were so many pairs of TOMS in the crowd. Everywhere you turn you would catch people walking, cheering, dancing and even singing “In the name of love Oprah come and rescue us” in TOMS!

I think the most unique trait is that after six days we were rescued by Oprah. Cheers to all of you who got involved with this amazing cause in hopes to finally putting an end to the abduction of child soldiers.

Until next time, here is a view of the open road from our vaga-van. This is pretty much what we will be seeing until we get back to Santa Monica! Can’t believe our road trip adventure is so close to an end…

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roadtrip to chicago!

tiaMW — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:33:57 +0000

When you think Midwest roadtrip, you think of passing through Chicago. And we are all up in it! I am in love with this place! We had two amazing events this weekend!

First one was at OhNo!Doom Art Gallery, where there were over ten artists that donated their time to paint shoes for the people that came! It was amazing, and a ton of fun. I got some shoes painted, and I haven’t gotten a chance to rock them yet because it’s been raining. But soon…

Then we participated in a barefoot walk at Willow Creek Community Church. The youth came out in full force, helping the church to meet their goal for the school they support in South Africa! It was really great to a part of that.

We also had pizza. Not just any pizza, but pizza that is the end all for any other pizza. Chicago style pizza.

So good. You don’t even know. My life is forever changed.

But let’s get serious here guys. I can’t event believe that tour is wrapping up. It seems like just a few weeks ago we were constantly saying ‘it’s almost here!’ And now, we are in the midst of week nine I think? Cah-razy.

But stick around, we aren’t done yet!

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dancin across the country

blairSW — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:06:34 +0000

So when team SW first starting blogging way back in January we often referenced constant dance parties at all events. While we were serious we didn’t realize what was to come. Without our planning or involvement dancing just seems to follow us wherever we go! Before we left Kelli worked the UCLA Danceathon. We set up at a B-boy battle in Phoenix a few weeks ago then when our BYU event came up and dancin was everywhere. First we watched some awesome break dancers and hip hop dancers promote our event in the afternoon. Then night rolled around and there were hula dancers dancing at our event! And of course at any appropriate or inappropriate time we are dancing by ourselves.

Kings of AZ [yes someone is upside down!]

BYU Breaking club gettin down for TOMS

Lovely hula dancers at BYU

In other news between last thursday and today SW team has driven about 40 hours. I’m sure most of the other teams laugh because thats the regular for them but for us it was pretty grooling. I can’t say any of us would take back even a minute of it because at each destination another awesome rep awaited us! We made it back to the Southwest on Friday evening then headed to Utah on Sunday morning where we had two great events. While in Salt Lake City we had the great opportunity to meet a new TOMS retailer! Richard of JMR stopped by our event at University of Utah to say hi and give us some stickers. At that time he only carried women’s but discussed ordering mens. By the time we stopped by his store after the event he had already put a mens order in! We spent some time chatting with him and his employees and heard about the humoungous TOMS sticker he is plans to make. Our University of Utah rep Cole and Richard are also partnering together for some upcoming events which is so great for us to get to be a part of. We love to see retailers and campus’ come together in the name of TOMS!

Bernadette chillin outside JMR

Jeff and the lovely JMR girls with Team SW and Bernadette

Well we are back on our usual stompin ground of CA for about a week and half so California friends keep an eye out! And thanks to everyone that went Barefoot with us!!

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arizona california arizona?

blairSW — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:27:46 +0000

We have finally left the state!! We hit Arizona on Sunday… but we were back in LA today for a church event. We set up at a huge Eco Friendly Fashion show at USC, too. Now we’re blazing the trail back to AZ- all in one day. Its going to be crazy and that is why we are just the ladies for the job!

Anyways, back to how things have gone for our last week…. To begin with all you other Vagabonds out there are so jealous that we got to see Mikey P!!! He helped us put on an event at the Pearl Hotel in Point Loma Saturday night. Our last big BANG in CA before eating a quick Ihop b-fast and heading to AZ. We haven’t quite been vagabonding it since our arrival here, being that Kelli’s apartment is in Phoenix we’ve been living a lush lifestyle the last few days. We had two great events in Tucson with our amazing reps Chelsea and Jenna. [We love you guys!] Had a relaxing day off yesterday and are getting ready for what’s bound to be another great event tonight at ASU!!

For me this week as been the first week of real tour being that I’m from Southern California it wasn’t much different then the travel I was used to. Krysten and Kelli didn’t feel like we were really on the road until we were crossing that state line either. We can’t believe that tour is almost half way over but are loving every event and every campus rep more and more. Although I will admit that it’s getting to the point where days and weeks and dates blend together. Wait is today Monday or Thursday… no Friday? I dunno. haha. No matter what day it is we know were going to have an epic event at whatever school we stumble upon!

Highway Motorist Tip #4:

Be advised that Interstate 8 is a windy dusty road. We felt a little like Dorthy and got excited for just a moment that we may end up in OZ to sell TOMS to munchkins. Despite the excitement its not so good for steering, cleanliness, and definitely for your air filter! Bernadette [the official name of the van] had to have it replaced yesterday along with her oil change. She’s still a pretty dirty girl though…

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oh the places you’ll go

admin — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:26:44 +0000

Recently received an email from our Fall 2008 Mid West Vagabond Laura, “My sister, Sarah, is stationed in Korea, flying F-16 fighter jets and she recently took this picture of herself in her jet with the TOMS flag!”

Pretty awesome. If you have a photo of yourself in TOMS or with your TOMS flag, send us your story and photo to info@TOMSshoes.com.

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and now, meet chris!

tiaMW — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:51:15 +0000

Hello to world of the interweb.

We, the Texas Midwest team, would to introduce you to Chris!

He hails from Atlanta, and we’re more than excited to get to know him more, and for you all to meet him on the road!

Today has been a busy busy day! We took some individual team and whole Vagabond group pictures today with Ron and Emma. I’m not bragging or anything, but we are a pretty good looking group of fools if I’ve ever seen one. Tonight we plan to show Chris around town, and take him to In-N-Out Burger, since he’s never been!

I feel like I say it all the time, but we are leaving SO soon. Monday? Really? The next blog you get from us will be from the wonderful state of Texas. Back to the land of Dr. Pepper, BBQ, and sweet cornbread. Otherwise known as: where the world makes sense.

So feel free to leave Chris some comments! See you guys next week!

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