ANDERSON — This year, students at Anderson Elementary School participated in Socktober, a sock drive that benefits the homeless.
Susan Sawyer, librarian at the school, started Socktober after being inspired by Martha Green.
Green, who is a retired librarian, has been collecting socks for this project for quite some time in partnership with the Christian Center.
“I worked downtown at the library for almost 29 years. I saw homeless people in and out every day and I knew there was a need,” Green said.
Sawyer joked that you couldn’t check out a book from Green unless you brought her a pair of socks.
“I was always bringing her a pair of socks and that kept on for years,” Sawyer said. “She inspired me.”
Knowing she couldn’t do this by herself, Sawyer enlisted the help of Linda Williams-Boyd, physical education teacher at AES, Cierra Goodling, music teacher at AES, and Pam Jackson, a third-grade teacher at AES.
“These are some wonderful people to work with anyway because they have such great ideas and they keep me focused,” Sawyer said.
In total, the school raised 1,706 pairs of socks during Socktober.
“What excited me was how excited the children were,” Jackson said. “Most of these socks were donated by kids and not the adults in this school.”
Along the way, there were milestone rewards to encourage kids to bring in socks.
“The goal was, first, to get 1,000. I said that we’re going to go over 1,000, the more you go over the more we get to do,” Sawyer said.
For 1,000 pairs of socks donated, Principal Buchanan will get covered in silly string. At 1,250 socks donated, AES bookkeeper Donna Sloss will have to kiss a pig. Once 1,500 pairs of socks are donated, six male staff members will have 30 whipped cream pies thrown in their faces. Sawyer said if the kids reached 2,000 pairs donated, then she would dye her hair blue, unfortunately they feel just shy of that goal.
“It wasn’t so we could silly string Ms. Buchanan, that an incentive,” Jackson said. “It’s just enjoying knowing that you helped somebody else.”
Jackson hopes to stay involved with Socktober as long as she can and even has some ideas to expand it.
“Let’s put something in place at the beginning of the school year and say ‘You can bring socks at anytime’ and then we can still have a big Socktober, but before then, start in the beginning and let kids freely give socks,” Jackson suggested.
All of the socks donated during the sock drive were donated to the Christian Center.
“This brings so many socks in in October and November and then we have the pleasure that the whole rest of the year, we give them away,” said Rob Spaulding, executive director of the Christian Center.
The Christian Center partners with local charities to help distribute socks to every person in Anderson that needs them.