More than 3,500 pairs of socks will be provided to people in need during the winter thanks to two local campaigns, says the executive director with a local service organization.
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“It’s really great,” said the Inn of the Good Shepherd’s Myles Vanni about separate Socktober drives by George O’Mahony Orthotics—formerly the Foot Care Centre—in Sarnia, and Great Lakes secondary school’s key club.
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They raised 2,800 and 800 pairs respectively, Vanni said.
Those will be distributed throughout the winter at local Inn of the Good Shepherd homeless shelters, he said.
“Foot care is a real issue for homeless people and for people in shelter,” Vanni said.
“Having dry, clean socks is so important in terms of their health.”
Several pairs of socks also were distributed last month along with about 400 winter coats at an event at Temple Baptist Church, Vanni said.
“We do a push to get winter coats out to people after Thanksgiving,” he said.
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“It starts to get cold.”
In past years, sock donations from the campaigns have been enough to last the winter, and a little into warmer weather, he said.
“It really provides, these two collections, socks for a good part of the year,” he said.
Winter coats and other cold-weather apparel items also are distributed to people in need throughout the winter, he said.
George O’Mahony Orthotics has been holding Socktober campaigns since 2016while Great Lakes has held campaigns for the past two years, Vanni said.
Great Lakes raised about 550 peers in 2022, said Dennis Loucks, with the Sarnia-Lambton Golden K Kiwanis Club that supports the student-led key club at the school.
“What we try to do with Kiwanis is impress on the kids the importance of volunteering … and being leaders in the community,” he said, calling this year’s drive—a student initiative via the key club—“a great example” and a “ pretty amazing accomplishment.”
The 2,800 peers via George O’Mahony Orthotics is up from 2,000 a year earlier, and getting closer to the center’s record of 3,500 pairs, set in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic, O’Mahony said.
“We thank everyone in the community that helped out,” he said. “It was a big effort.”
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