Why Vacas supports teachers with a 15% discount

If it weren’t for my career as a teacher, Vacas never would have existed. In fact, it was the engagement received from my students on my first pair of cowhide shoes that helped me realize how much people love them. Vacas are cute, fun, comfy, and unique. What more could you ask for as a teacher?! Every time I wore my cowhide shoes to class, it struck up fun conversations with the students. One class even nicknamed them “moo-cows”. This nickname almost became the official name of the company! In our household, we still refer to that first pair of shoes as my moo-cows.

After launching Vacas to the world this year, there was a big question surrounding how our company would give back to the community. This was very important to me. It needed to be something that Vacas could be part of in a helpful way, and create a voice for good. It didn’t take long for me to choose our K-12 school teachers.

I began my first career as a teacher in 2008 for the city of Richmond. In my 10 year career, I went on to teach kindergarten, 2^nd, 4^th, and 5^th grades. Being a teacher is in my blood. I loved the students and all of my fellow teachers as well. It makes me sad to see teachers leaving the profession. It makes me even sadder knowing there won’t be enough qualified teachers to fill the spots opening up, translating to larger classes and more stress on the teachers still there. This isn’t good for anyone. These days, teacher shortages are happening across the country, specifically in urban areas of poverty. Just recently, the Economic Policy Institute warned there could be a shortage of over 100,000 teaching jobs nationally. A shortage is defined as “the inability to staff vacancies at current wages with individuals qualified to teach in the fields needed.” What’s worse than knowing there aren’t enough teachers for our children is knowing that current teachers are having significant moral issues. Just like me, there are thousands of teachers leaving the field every day, with nothing major being done to fix the problem.

After I knew I wanted my business to support teachers, I had a hard time figuring out how we would do it. I wanted to do more than just cut a non-profit a check at the end of the year. It had to be something that could connect me directly to the teachers in the classroom. In a conversation with my husband, who is a veteran, he said that his favorite benefit received from companies supporting veterans is the extra discount. He gave examples of Lowe’s and Bass Pro Shops. You know, guy stuff. They give a 5% - 10% discount to veterans. This puts money right back into my husband’s pocket, and he says that’s what he likes.

So that’s what we decided to do. Except when I started looking at the discounts offered from companies for veterans, teachers, etc., I started to notice that most of them were always just 5%-10%. This discount is great, but I was thinking mine could be better. Something to really differentiate teachers from the rest of the world. This is how we came up with a 15% teacher discount, no questions asked. Just type in teacher15 into the discount code field when checking out, and wham! There you go! What’s even cooler about Vacas giving 15% off to teachers is knowing how these teachers will benefit further from the conversations with students about their unique shoes. Kids absolutely love them. At the end of the day, knowing that Vacas can put a few dollars back into a teacher’s pocket, while also helping them engage their classrooms just a little bit more, put’s warmth in my heart. Cheers to all you teachers out there!