Blake Mycoskie (pictured left) is the founder of TOMS Shoes, a business that provides a pair of shoes to children in need for every one purchased. According to its website, the organization has provided 600,000 to children in need. Mycoskie was in Radford this year to speak at the Radford Centennial Charter Day celebration. As part of their movement to increase awareness of poverty, Tom’s shoes challenged others to spend a day without shoes on April 8. The following is a summary of my experience.

While preparing to take my first step onto the gravel parking lot I could see the shimmering of the morning light. Now this might sound inviting but the light was actually bouncing off the pieces of glass that I would soon have to navigate. For a moment I regretted not packing an old pair of sandals in my book bag but I convinced myself that a true experience would require a certain level of risk.

I wasn’t real sure what would be gained by participating in the “day without shoes” but felt compelled to increase my awareness of poverty. I also have to admit that I was rather curious about the experiential value of going barefoot for a day. Looking back, I can say that it was enlightening—probably similar to the experience of people who use a wheelchair for a day to increase awareness of the challenges faced by individuals unable to walk.

I learned that life without shoes requires a lot more attention to the ground below. This may seem obvious but I discovered a deeper meaning to this fact. As my thoughts were focused on a scanning of both the current and future environment around my feet, at some point I realized that this could be analogous to what poverty is like. Having to find food, transportation, medical care, and shelter (just to name a few) may require a similar type of scanning and attention that the ground received from me.

Often it is asked why people can’t pull themselves out of poverty. Although the day without shoes experience did not provide me with all the answers to a very complex problem, it did provide some clarity into the difficulties faced by people who are poor: Without an opportunity to look past basic needs, how can one gaze toward a different future. The basic needs that many of us take for granted are often the central focus of the lives of persons living in poverty. How can those who are impoverished look up when survival necessitates constant consideration of the ground below?

Thank you Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS Shoes, for providing impoverished individuals with a chance to look up. Possibilities increase exponentially when one has the opportunity to look past the ground below and toward the larger landscape ahead.

Joshua Bradley is from a “no stoplight county” in southern West Virginia and proud of it. He is a student in the Radford University Psy.D program.