Greendals On The Joachim Creek

We had a chance this week to spend some time cleaning the Joachim Creek in Hematite, Missouri with Missouri Stream Team, a Girl Scout Troop, and a group of volunteers. Some pretty amazing finds, including fifty-nine tires in just over a mile of stream. Other finds included 300 pounds of metal, a sprint-car gas tank, a strand of Christmas lights, and an old metal milk tin. Thanks to the team that organized the event and props to those young girls who came out to spend their free time so selflessly.

If you haven’t had a chance to volunteer for a cleanup in your town, I would absolutely recommend it. The overwhelming amount of garbage a group can pull out of a stream during an organized event always surprises me. The things you find are always amazing. And the spirit, of the people, who come together of their own will to make a difference is always incredibly inspirational… no matter how many times you do it.

Our hope is that in the future Greendals can help to fund and take part in more and more stream team events…bringing cleaner waterways in our own backyard and driving excitement about making a difference in yours. Maybe that will spur the next maker of sandals made from used tires, or the like.

Please feel free to reach out to us and let us know what you're doing in your own backyard to make the world a bit better for the rest of us.

Thanks for reading!

-Tip

Greendals Goes To Ozark Outdoors

We had a chance to take a break from shoe making this week and run down to Ozark Outdoors for a combination sales meeting and float trip. Jury is still out on the sales pitch, but it sounds like $40 per pair might be a bit too lofty for the float crowd. We were hopeful that the ties to Missouri Stream Team and eco-friendly nature of the sandal would help to sell it in, especially as the tire tread on the base of the sandals is so visible. Whatever happens, you can’t beat a beautiful day on the Meramec River. Or a beautiful day on the Courtois River, the Huzzah River, and the Meramec River…which is what we did.

Luckily, it was a great day for it and we had a great time on the river, but not before our bus driver made sure we weren’t planning on wearing any body paint on our boat. Apparently there’s a history of that at Ozark Outdoors, and body paint doesn’t wash out of river rafts. Who knew?

Overall, it was a great trip. We even stopped to pull out a few pieces of trash at a sandbar or two. Although the river was much higher than we had anticipated, so not a lot of sandbars to stop at. The best find, no doubt, was a Spongebob Squarepants harmonica…and yes, it still works! Some guy must have been playing it in a pineapple under the sea.

We also discovered Lady Lotta Litterbags from mostreamteam.com. Apparently, she's the spokesperson for river cleanup on those famous orange netted bags. Never noticed the illustration before. This gal has it figured out. I’m not sure about rocking a tiara on the river, but she pulls it off. Party.

Of course, we  took some time to get a few Greendals photo ops. Unfortunately, we couldn’t pry the above tire out of the sand…must have weighed 3 or 4 hundred pounds with the sand…we're gonna do some pushups and try to get him next time.

As always, looking forward to our next float trip.

Thanks for reading,

-Tip

Greendals Launch: Thank You

From the start, the idea of building a green footwear company from the ground up has felt like a crazy dream…who knows where Greendals will end up, but getting to today is a win in and of itself.

As we get this thing rolling, I wanted to make sure we thanked a few of the people who made this possible. First off, thanks to Bob Schroeder for a couple years of listening. I can’t believe that a sales guy spent as much time with me as you did, but your thirty years in the shoe business came in handy more than a few times. Who knew working with recycled tires would be so difficult?

Thank you to Independent Die for giving us a place to get things started, and for not asking me “when are you gonna start selling these sandals made from tires?” every other week. Thanks to Saint Louis sandal maker Hoy Shoe, especially Jeff and Ric, for being a great partner (and supplier). Thanks to Kim Nasskau, for your quick turnaround time and consistent upbeat attitude. Thanks to Norvill for sending me the shortest, and most consistent, emails ever.

Thanks to Christian Lindsey. Cnote, I hope we can make you as infamous as the designer of the swoosh for giving your work away...but I wouldn’t count on it. And speaking of the swoosh, thanks to Bowerman, who showed me what a guy can do with a waffle maker. And speaking of design, thank you to Katie Marshall for taking my mess and making it much, much prettier.

Thank you Murph for your thoughts on communications and marketing, I’m sure we’ll be talking again and again. Thank you to Mac French for all the business connections, consumer feedback, and midnight ideas, and thank you to Michael McDonnell and Austin Fitzgerald for being legal eagles with extremely reasonable hourly fees. Thank you to ALL of our wear-testers out there, the feedback wasn’t always easy to take…but you helped us move forward.

Thank you to Elizabeth, for all of your support and making me feel that chasing a dream is a worthwhile endeavor. But most of all, thank you to the people at Missouri Stream Team for making a difference in our watersheds for the last thirty years, pulling thousands and thousands of tires out of our rivers every year. And to everyone that has the perseverance to go out and personally make an investment of yourself, in eco-friendly efforts, however small…in the face of overwhelming odds. It’s that continuing spirit that I hope to capture with Greendals, and infuse into the fiber of the company moving forward.

All that said, I guess the only person left to thank is you, for reading this alllllll the way to the end.

So thanks.

-Tip

Greendals Launch : The Charity

The thought of building shoes from recycled tires first entered my mind while on a jog by the Missouri River. Seeing dozens of tires and debris along the high water line was astounding to me. If there were that many tires along just one mile of river, how many would there be along the  Missouri within the state...or the entire river?

In any given year, organizations like Living Lands and Waters ( http://livinglandsandwaters.org/ ) and the Missouri Stream Team (http://www.mostreamteam.org/) clean up thousands upon thousands of tires in addition to all sorts of other trash...plastic bottles by the boatload, entire cars, folding chairs, building materials. If you've never been to a cleanup in your area, I would encourage you to look online and find opportunities to get involved...even if it is just one afternoon a year, you would be surprised at how rewarding an experience with a local stream team can be.

Currently at Greendals, we can only use a very specific type of used tire in our production efforts, so we look to source from many locations (junkyards, tire recyclers, stream teams, etc) but our goal in supporting the Missouri Stream Team is not just to donate a portion of every sale to the organization, but to utilize as much waste pulled directly from the rivers and streams as possible.

Thanks for reading!

-Tip 

Greendals Launch : The Purpose

I've always been inspired by seeing objects given a second life. Old rehabbed cars, record players, quilts made from old t-shirts, factories that turn into lofts, train stations that become malls. And like many Millenials, I've been increasingly aware that through the ease of industrial production we are causing massive change to a world that, will inevitably be fine...we just won't be there to see it.

Greendals is a combination of those two ideas. I wanted to produce something of utility from reused materials, while at the same time helping to do some good for this earth. By pulling tires out of rivers, fields, and junkyards and turning them into sturdy, durable footwear we accomplish both. And, in so doing, we give back part of our profits to the agencies that work, every day, to clean up the mess created by a 21st century world.

But importantly, this doesn't work unless we're profitable. We can't make an impact if we don't sell any shoes. So the purpose of Greendals isn't entirely altruistic, but the end result could be part of the change we all need to get a second life.

-Tip