Michaelangelo Conte/The Jersey Journal




Greed is good, according to the movie ?Wall Street,? but philanthropy is even better for the bottom line, the founder of a shoe company told an audience at New Jersey City University in Jersey City recently.

?While giving feels really good, it?s also really, really good for business, and there is nothing wrong with that,? Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS shoes, said at an event sponsored by the NJCU chapter of the National Society of Leadership and Success.

More than 200 students, faculty and others attended the event, which was simulcast to other colleges.

Mycoskie was designing software seven years ago when he took a trip to Argentina. While there, he joined some people who were delivering used shoes to children in a poor village so they would be able to walk to school. He was moved.

Soon after returning to the United States he started TOMS, a shoe company that donates one pair of shoes for each pair purchased.

Last June, the company donated its 10 millionth pair of shoes to poor children, Mycoskie said.

The company he started in his California apartment got press coverage and grew quickly. Five months after launching it, thousands of miles from home in a New York airport, he saw a woman wearing a pair of TOMS shoes and he was astounded.

He said he played dumb and asked her about the shoes. After telling him they were TOMS shoes, the woman had to tell him more.

?You don?t understand, this is the most amazing company in the world,? the woman said, grabbing him by the shoulder.

?When I bought this pair of shoes, they gave a pair of shoes to a child in Argentina.?

Mycoskie said he realized that ?if we focus on giving and allowing our customers to become part of our story, then everything else will work out.?

Since then, Mycoskie has incorporated his ?one for one? philosophy to eyeglasses and eye care, and his bio says he has ?helped save and restore sight to more than 200,000 people in need around the world.?

Following the event, NJCU senior Orlane Baghana said, ?It is really, really important that we teach other people to do the same.?