Artterro Eco Art Kits
Artterro - Eco-friendly, open-ended art projects with beautiful materials. The packaging becomes a frame for the mini masterpieces!
Closed at 6 this Thursday for Tim Wise presentation
Sorry for any inconvenience but we will be closing at 6pm on Thursday, March 15 so that our staff can attend the talk
http://www.saskatoon.ca/DEPARTMENTS/Community%20Services/Communitydevelopment/Cultural%20Diversity%20and%20Race%20Relations/Pages/TimWise.aspx
A Green Conversation
Click here to participte!
bkr Glass + Silicon Water Bottle
If it’s good enough for Jessica Alba’s kid…bkr now in-stock
TOMS HQ Reconnaissance Mission
Recently I was able to visit TOMS headquarters in Santa Monica, CA it was such a great experience but my favourite part was when I got to talk to a member of their giving department. I had a chance to ask tons of questions about the logistics, motives and complexities of giving away millions of pairs of shoes and especially how to make sure that it is done ethically. So for all of you wanting to know the nitty-gritty details of TOMS giving operations, here is what I found out.
TOMS works with NGOs and humanitarian organizations around the world, to distribute shoes to children they already support in some way, be it through housing, education, health, or other support services. Some of these include Oxfam, Save the Children, Seva Foundation (for eyesight restoration), Partners in Health to name a few.
Criteria for partnerships
TOMS looks for Giving Partners that have the reputation and capacity to handle large-volume shoe distribution over a multi-year partnership. They expect their Giving Partners to be the experts on the ground, and to ensure that the shoes are given responsibly and in a way that has high positive impacts. Baseline criteria include:
1. Repeat giving: The Giving Partner should be willing and able to work with TOMS in a multi-year partnership, providing shoes to the same children as they grow. TOMS can replenish shoes as often as field conditions require – this usually ranges from every 6 months to every 12 months.
2. Large volume: Most of TOMS’ donated shoes are sent to the field in large shipping containers, which means that most of our partners serve a large number of children. Organizations who are invited to apply for shoes must demonstrate ability to responsibly accept, store, and distribute shoes. They are open to two or more organizations coordinating amongst themselves to share a container.
3. High impact: Shoes should help the Giving Partner achieve its existing goals, whether they are increased health and well being, disease prevention or eradication, or school attendance.
4. Responsible giving: Partners should work with TOMS to mitigate negative consequences of shoe-giving, including impacts on local shoe-making or shoe-selling economies, as well as considering stigma and other social impacts of giving shoes to children.
5. TOMS Shoes is a non-political, non-religious for profit business with a sustainable giving model. While we are happy to work with organizations from all religious and political backgrounds, we prohibit the giving of our shoes from being associated with any religious or political ideology.
I was super happy to hear that TOMS is starting to offer a “shoe catalogue” for the Giving partners to place orders from so that communities get shoes that are appropriate for the climate and social setting that the children are in. TOMS started by always giving the traditional alpargata shoe and are now offering a cold weather boot, a sandal, a fancier dress shoe, and specific colors such as black which is required for school uniforms in many countries. Each Giving Partner places an order for specific sizes and styles that they need so that the shoes are most effective for the community and there is no waste.
I wanted to know more about how serious TOMS was about Criteria #4 and probed quite a bit to find out what they did to ensure that local business was not affected by the distribution of shoes. I was informed that TOMS has recently started to do Impact Studies through a 3rd party organization to find out the impacts, positive and negative, of select communities where they have been giving heavily for a number of years. The goal was to find out more about local business, school attendance, prevalence of infections disease through soil transmission, and other effects that the giving has had on the community. Although the results of the study were not available to be shared quite yet, I was really pleased that TOMS is undergoing these kinds of steps to ensure that the giving is done responsibly.
Although, it doesn’t relate directly to giving I asked a few questions about the manufacturing process of TOMS and found out that the shoes are made in 3 countries, China, Argentina and Ethiopia. The factories are third-party audited yearly by this organization to ensure fair wages and working conditions. It was nice to hear that TOMS is environmentally conscious with their production and waste as little as possible when constructing the shoes. They also make the shoes as close as possible to where they will be given (Argentina makes shoes that are given in South and Central America) so that they aren’t shipping shoes all over the world.
Finding out more about restoring sight with the purchase of a pair of sunglasses was one of my missions but because the program is still so new there wasn’t a lot of info they could share with me. I would encourage everyone to frequently check out The Giving Side which is TOMS blog devoted to updates about specific giving operations.
Winter Bike! - GO GREEN Ideas
You might get inspired to WINTER BIKE at Ice Cycle!
What would it take to go GREEN? Contest
So often there are small (or BIG!) things that each of us knows we could do to live a greener more sustainable life. We know we want to, but we just don’t quite make it happen. So we had this idea for a contest to offer a little motivation and support.
Here’s how the contest will work:
You will think of something you would like to commit to doing for yourself and our planet. This could range from eating vegetarian one day a week, walking to work, consuming less, planting a garden, switching over to all natural biodegradable cleaning products, buying organic cotton, turning lights off, recycling or any other great ideas we’re sure you will have. If you want to think of more than one thing, you can enter multiple times, but remember this is more than an idea of what you would like to do, it’s something you will do, as part of your commitment to living an even greener simpler lifestyle.
TO ENTER: Write down your plan on a (small) piece of paper, including your name and email or phone number and drop it off at The Better Good. At the end of February if you did what you set out to do - YOU WIN! In addition we will draw two entries who will receive a Sustainability Kit ($50 value and all items are fully exchangeable for anything in the store more useful to you)
We hope you will have fun and feel empowered thinking about all the things you can do. Remember no action is too small to make a difference.
Start now! GO GREEN!!!
From all of us at ~The Better Good~
Next Up
We are so happy to be helping Saskatoon’s Next Up program. Your purchases at our shop directly translate to assistance for groups like this! Thank you.
Next Up is a leadership program for young people committed to social and environmental justice.
Core Neighbourhood Youth Co-op
We believe CNYC is making a difference in Saskatoon and are proud to be able to financially support them. As always - Thanks to our community for the ongoing support that allows us to support others!
The Core Neighbourhood Youth Co-op is a skills building and alternative education program for youth in Saskatoon. Youth are able to earn academic credits and learn life and employment skills in a compassionate and supportive environment.
TOMS HQ
I just got back from spending a few days in LA, it was awesome! The Better Good was chosen by TOMS shoes as one of only two Canadian retail stores to go down to Santa Monica, CA and spend a day at HQ. I didn’t know quite what to expect but ended up having such a blast all day. They did such a good job of making sure we had lots of fun and also got in a lot of info on the whole TOMS operation.
Here is the TOMS shuttle van coming to pick me up at the hotel. I was joined by 4 wonderful people from Korea, 2 from the TOMS UK office and 1 more Canadian girl who owns a shop in Edmonton.
Arriving at TOMS HQ in beautiful Santa Monica! It is so nice here and the warehouse/offices are a reasonable bike ride to the beach, shopping and the Santa Monica pier. I am with Neeka, an intern in the international relations department.
I absolutely loved the work environment at TOMS, every employee has a cubicle made out of plywood which kind of sounds like it could be awful but it wasn’t! Every one was decorated and had lots of character and there were TOMS everywhere you looked being used for all kinds of things.
Another awesome thing about the whole scene there is that there are no “corner offices” or other signs of hierarchy. Top executives,including the founder Blake Mycoskie, have their offices in the same space as everyone else, interns, new employees and heads of departments. Also, there are no stuffy job titles that show rank of any kind. Every employee has to have shoe in their title and they choose it themselves, such as Chief Shoe Giver or Punky Shoester.
The style-your-sole part of the day was so fun!! I was a bit worried because I am not at all artistic but I stuck to something simple and they turned out alright. After being a part of one, I am totally sold on style-your-sole parties. We are definitely going to plan to do one at the shop and I would highly recommend calling us up if you want to have a super original, fun birthday party or any kind of party for that matter. Here is some more info on the concept and remember kids can design shoes too!
The rest of the afternoon was spent at a screening of the TOMS documentary (so good to get an understanding of the start-up of such an innovative company) By the way, we have a copy of the shop that we loan out so stop by if you want to bring it home for a night!
After that we got to meet with a representative of the giving department and I got to slam her with as many questions as I could come up with and there were lots! I will do a separate post reporting back all of the nitty-gritty details of how, where, why TOMS give shoes and how they insure that their #1 goal “to give responsibly” is upheld.
We wrapped up the day with the TOMS weekly Friday after work Happy Hour! They plan so many awesome incentives for employees, no wonder so many people have worked there since the very beginning. Here are some of the fun things the staff take advantage of: regular costume challenges, massage therapy appointments on fridays for any employee that signs up, use of the TOMS shuttle vans and bikes, opportunity to go on a shoe drop and of course happy hour where there is an awesome spread of food and drinks and where the staff hang out and decompress after the work week.
Thanks for reading about my TOMS HQ experience!
