Phil and Wendy Sebastian, owners of the Helena-based company Chupl, spent half a decaderepurposing tyre treads into soles of shoes sold to benefit Himalayan Hope Children’s Home.
Chupl, the Hindi word for a flip-flop sandal, is the brainchild of the Sebastians’ son Tim. He now lives in India but he grew up playing in the stacks of tyres in Eagles. According to Wendy, her son spent most of that time dreaming of possible reuses for old junktyres. That dream started after a Kenyan man visited Tim’s fourth-grade classroom, telling him and his classmates about conditions in third-world countries, where he said flip flops were made from junk tyres.
After Tim spent more than five years living among orphaned and abandoned children, his passion for the idea rekindled in 2011. And then five years after that, Chupl has sold 500 pairs of flip flops for between USD50 and USD85 and around 100 pairs of regular leather and canvas shoes.
Wendy said that her son hopes to eventually build a shoe factory to employ people in the Indian village where he lives. They still have 1,600 pairs waiting to be sold before they can start making more shoes.
Tim Sebastian, writing on Chupl’s website, said he hoped the company could use junk tyres to “communicate that people’s lives should not be measured by their current situation but by the potential that can be realized when their lives have been repurposed, like the junk tyre.”