Hodgepodge of Look, and Good

First, the good. Panera Bread opened up Panera Cafe a few years ago, a place where people come and pay what they can for meals. After a year, Panera Bread Co. has opened two more similar cafes, which make enough money to cover costs and use the several thousand leftover to provide job training for at risk youth.

Read more in this article from The Washington Post (where the image is from as well).

Now, the look. One of my blog inspirations, LLOSO, posted today about visiting the Sonia Delaunay exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt, and shared these images, which are gorgeous and inspiring:

I Danced My Ass off at Josh’s Bar Mitzvah...

Soon to be a documentary and the inspiration behind Project Repat, “I danced my ass off at Josh’s bar mitzvah. Santa Barbara, California. January, 2006," is the wordage nonprofit organizer Sean Hewens saw on a shirt on a rickshaw operator in Tanzania.

Hewens and Ross Lohr, who run two nonprofits in Tanzania, then had the bright idea to take shirts similar to these that made it to the African market after being donated to Goodwill or Salvation Army in the States and then resold, stamp them with a "REPATRIATED" logo, and sell them back in the States to hip kids who love their retro, kitschy shirts.



Profits support nonprofits Smallbean and Newton-Tanzania Initiative -- winter and spring proceeds already covered a new computer lab and scholarships for a schoolgirls in Tanzania.



Watch a video about it. (It's an awesome video, by the way.)

Via GOOD. (All images from Project Repat website.)

Warby Parker Glasses

Along the lines of TOMS shoes, for every pair purchased, one is donated. Not to mention the glasses are awesome.

Women's Pierce

Men's Griffin

They offer home try-ons and free returns, AND the frames with lenses are only $99. Way cooler than any expensive hipster frames.

Warby Parker uses great branding to be hip, meaning the great price doesn't tone done the "I want!" feel.

Example: Founder of Tommy Guns Hair Salon is front and center for its monacles:

And I want to look like her/work for them:

And Victor Jeffrey, filmmaker, is all about 'em too:

And to end well, here's a glasses recipient in Guatamala, who is adorable as well:

Because, according to Warby Parker, one billion people around the world are struggling to work or learn affectively because they need glasses but don't have access to/can't afford them.

Visit Warby Parker's website.

...And Proud Mary's Pop-Up Shop in NYC

Also exciting, Proud Mary has a pop-up shop open in NYC through this weekend at Guilded Studio:

 Basically, (combined with the last post) cute shoes, awesome business, good cause, fun event: win-win-win-win. And there are more wins, I'm just going to post them separately to give Proud Mary the attention it deserves!

Aloha, and don't worry -- I won't be running away to Kaua'i again anytime soon.

Proud Mary Market

I took a trip to Kaua'i last week, a much-needed escape, and took these shoes from socially conscious textile business Proud Mary's Proud Mary Market along with me. Proud Mary owner Harper Poe collects market items when they strike her fancy on her business travels. Ten percent of purchases also go Starfish One by One, which promotes education initiatives for girls in Guatemala. Some items that are still available:

(When I'm a grown-up with my own place, I want this rug!)

All of these items can be purchased at Proud Mary Market on Supermarket. You can also check out her textiles, which I'll blog about soon!

Speaking of TOMS ...

Love that they made Refinery 29's "Stride Right in These Stylin' Summer Sneakers" list. See, good, fashion, and consumerism do play well together!

See the list here.

TOMS and La Blogotheque, Barefoot

La Blogotheque is a French music weblog that films Take Away Shows with musicians and bands who, for these videos, perform acoustically in impromptu-ish settings (I can't get enough). La Blogotheque paired with TOMS shoes to do barefoot sessions with artists for the One Day Without Shoes movement.

Watch the videos they created and read more about it here. I'm especially a fan of the Phosphorescent sessions.

TOMS Shoes provides a child with a pair of shoes for every pair someone buys (more about this company soon). Shoes protect children in developing countries from injury, infection, and disease. They also complete a child's uniform so that he or she can attend school.

Check out La Blogotheque's site for music news and more incredible take away shows (my favorite features Local Natives singing "Who Knows, Who Cares" in the almost empty Passage Vivienne in Paris). And if you want to be able to read the site but aren't fluent in French, try logging in with Google Chrome, which will offer to translate it at the top of the page. Oh, technology.