GreenSoul Shoes – Our Mission

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Worldwide children make up a third of the population. Yet, 300 million children, or roughly 16% of the world’s children, do not have access to the footwear you and I consider essential. Now, at GreenSoul Shoes we have been empowering local artisans through NGOs like Heritage Watch to handmake  100% recycled sandals. For every pair of shoes sold, one will be given to a shoeless child. Our innovative business model allows our consumers to directly support an underprivileged child.

We have established working relationships with three shoemakers in the developing world and hope to add many more local partners in the coming weeks and months. Stay tuned! View Larger Map

Please join us in our adventure to shoe the world’s shoeless children in an environmentally-beneficial fashion.

-The GSS team

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes from Lima

Lima runs at a slower pace than most large metropolitan cities I have been to; its rhythm is more traditional, and its people reflect a steadier, calmer constitution. It feels more like a cluster of smaller towns. The south side of the city is washed by the cold waters of the southern Pacific ocean and seems pleasantly removed from the pace of time.

Cusco, the former capital city of the Inca Empire, has a similar feel though it definitely carters to tourism far better than Lima. There are now scores of beautiful Catholic Churches and modern conveniences, such as a McDonalds smack in the middle of the Plaza de Armas (the central town square).

Vote for us at Forbes.com

WE NEED YOUR VOTE!

GreenSoul Shoes is honored to be a top semi-finalist for the Forbes.com’s Boost Your Business business plan competition.  Our business model of working with local artisans to create a 100% up-cycled sandal (entirely made out of recycled rubber tires, with no staples, glues or threads) and for each one that we sell, giving one away to a child in need is gaining traction, but we need your help by gaining more votes to be able to win this business plan competition.

Winning this competition would allow us to expand our reach to local artisans, add new sandal models, and increase our shoes distribution. With your support and vote, we are confident we can reach the final round.

The voting process is easy:

1) Click the following link: http://bit.ly/18XZ9g
2) select GreenSoul Shoes;
3) put in your email and verification code;
4) click the confirmation link in your email;
5) Send this email to your friends

Voting ends on September 3oth, 2009.  Vote for us today!

First shoe donation in Navotas City, Philippines

So earlier this week, we donated the first batch of shoes to school children from the Philippines Christian Foundation in Navotas City, Philippines. The children were really excited and the school had them perform a thank you dance for us. Overwhelmingly, the people are excited to have us join them in their community and we are excited to work with them.

The location was set in a community of 500 to 1000  folks who lived in a local cemetery which was kind of macabre as there were open graves which were waiting to be reused.

There was also a section of housing built on stilts that extended into the water–the living conditions were still extremely rough and many sections of the bamboo floors were coming apart–making it important to look where you placed your foot.

By the time we left, we had over a hundred smiling faces and a community that had something new to celebrate. It has been a great week for our team over at GreenSoul Shoes and we are pretty excited about next steps!

More pictures here: http://su.pr/1DdOWq

Alastair Interviewed by Liz and Joan Hamburg for Radio Show “LaunchPad!”

Our fearless leader, Alastair was interviewed by Liz and Joan Hamburg for their WOR 710AM radio show, “LaunchPad.” We were pleasantly surprised by especially Liz Hamburg, who was the motivating factor in getting GSS featured for this radio show. She really did her homework and asked all of the perfect question, making Alastair’s job so easy – he looks so purrrrtey. Click here to listen to the interview with Alastair: http://su.pr/2OPgxr

Launchpad is heard live every Monday morning at 12:40 pm.

“Serial entrepreneur” Liz Hamburg and her mother Joan Hamburg bring you inspiring stories from small business owners and entrepreneurs. Hear directly Everything from those who are just starting out to the many who have already made it. All of them have war stories to share and tips of what to do and not to do. Launchpad also offers expert advice on how to finance your business, how to market it, how to deal with employees, health insurance and lots of other important topics.

Teaching Social Entrepreneurship to Prep to Prep future Leaders

GreenSoul Shoes was invited to give a lecture on Social Entrepreneurship to high school kids from the Prep to Prep program in New York City. These bright and outgoing kids have been selected after a rigorous selection process for a 14-month long after school program. The program covers from advance academics to personal development. During this summer, they are focusing on creating their own business plan. Their business ideas range from a service to convert analog media to digital media for the non-techies to selling vintage dresses. We could see how driven they were! we have no doubt that they will be our future leaders and successful businessmen/women.

Thoughts on packaging?

We really care about wasteful packaging. Check out this posting by treehugger on one of the worst packaging ideas ever:

Since we view our friends and supporters as important partners  in our new venture, we need your help in deciding which packaging we should use. Click here: http://su.pr/2MRBUk

Check back in a week when we post the results!

Crowdsourcing packaging winner: Meg Sullivan

So about half a month ago, we announced a contest to find the packaging design for our shoebox. Today, we are happy to announce our winner: Meg Sullivan. She was a class of 2008 graphic design student at Yale, where she was also on the crew team for four years. Today, she works as a graphic designer in Norwalk, CT.

She tells us she loves design, photography, rowing, adventures, and all things funny, odd, colorful, or serene.

Check out her other designs here.

Yvonne Wang to represent GSS as Miss Earth New York

Hi, my name is Yvonne Wang, and I the current Miss Earth New York. In July, I will be representing New York in the Miss Earth United States pageant in Las Vegas. This pageant system advocates environmental awareness and advocacy, and the winner will go onto the international Miss Earth competition in the Philippines.

So we are excited to announce that Yvonne Wang will be representing us as Miss Earth New York at the United States pageant in Las Vegas. The pageant advocates environmental awareness and advocacy through the power of broadcasting and media campaigns. Miss Earth is the third largest beauty pageant in the world, behind Miss Universe and Miss World, in terms of the number of national-level competitions.  Its major project “I Love Planet Earth School Tour,” teaches and distributes educational aides for school children.

Thanks Yvonne!

Reflections on our NPR piece

So its been two weeks since our NPR piece (http://tinyurl.com/p6kpeu) and I just wanted to say that things are good! Here’s a c;lip from the article which focused on the green (but not the give). I guess we do have quite a few different elements to our business to talk about!

Stephen Chen pushes some boxes around his tiny Manhattan office looking for a place to sit. Then he perches on the edge of a desk and takes out a pair of dark rubber sandals. They’re “100 percent recycled post-consumer use” sandals made out of tires, Chen says.

Chen, 26, is a partner at a company called GreenSoul Shoes. He’s scrupulously polite, though he stops to look at his BlackBerry every chance he gets. Chen grew up in the Bronx — a math wiz who went to Brown. He later landed a job at Bear Stearns. He loved the intense competition of the place, and he would have stayed, but then one weekend last year, Bear Stearns collapsed.

We Have A Winner!

Congratulations to William Cherwin!

The judges announced William Cherwin as the winner of the 1st GreenSoul Shoes Design Contest.

About William: Born in Rochester, New York and currently living in Tennessee when not at school, William is a rising sophomore majoring in fashion design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

The GreenSoul Shoes team wants to extent a big THANK YOU all participants for a wonderful contest! Please stay tuned to our 2nd contest in the Fall!

The 1st GreenSoul Shoes Design Contest ‘Design Your Soul’ is now officially closed.