When You Buy Toms’ New Climbing Shoes, You Can Help Change a Kid’s Life

Climbing can change lives. Toms changes lives.

Now you can buy a pair of limited edition Toms climbing shoes and help change a child’s life for the better.

Toms has teamed up with climbing gear company So iLL and non-profit 1Climb with the goal of helping 100,000 kids try climbing for the first time. Now through September 14, 2018, you can pre-order the Collaboration Street climbing shoe or Alpargata lifestyle shoe via IndieGogo. Proceeds will go to 1Climb; every $20,000 helps build a climbing wall in a Boys and Girls Club across the U.S. (climbing walls can cost $80,000 or more and take months to construct). Whatever money is left will buy climbing passes for kids to explore local gyms.

The Collaboration Street climbing shoe ($149) is based on So iLL’s successful Street model. It’s got a padded tongue, a synthetic upper, and Dark Matter Rubber soles, some the stickiest rubber on the planet. The ultra-thin midsole and downturned create an aggressive, lightweight shoe great for intermediate or advanced climbing. The shoes are 100-percent vegan and made in the U.S. Two colorways are available: gray in men’s sizes and turquoise in women’s.

The Alpargata lifestyle shoe ($89) is based on the classic TOMS shape but comes with a Dark Matter Rubber sole. A reinforced pull tab at the back, the classic TOMS toe-stitch, and a pig suede sock liner pig make for a comfy ride. There’s no midsole so you can feel everything you need to on the ground. Colors are the same as the climbing shoes.

Toms is known around the world for its one-or-one program. For each pair of shoes purchased, the brand donates a pair to a child in need. On an 18-hour day climbing in the Tetons, Toms founder Blake Mycoskie and 1Climb founder Kevin Jorgeson hatched the collaboration idea. Jorgeson and the 1Climb team won’t stop until they’ve reached their goal of taking 100,000 kids climbing. It’s likely just the beginning for the driven climber, whose life was permanently changed for the better when he was nine. “There’s life before climbing and life after climbing,” he says.