By Aaron Mahoney (@Mahones93 on Twitter)

B-93, and a handful of Lethbridge organizations, team up to donate over 1,600 pairs of socks to Streets Alive Mission

Jan 29, 2018 | 12:37 PM

LETHBRIDGE – On Monday, Jan. 22, just a week ago, the morning show hosts at All Hits B-93 announced they would be looking to collect 200 pairs of socks as part of a Sock Chaser project that would go to Streets Alive Mission over the following week.

Chad Benson, April Hanson and all of the businesses that donated knocked the socks off of that goal as they collected 1,633 pairs in total.

Benson says the idea came from a video his girlfriend had showed him.

“There’s this company in the United States that sells socks online, and for every pair that was sold they would donate another pair to a charity in need,” he continued. “What they found is that socks are one of the items most needed by shelters like Streets Alive, but they’re often overlooked.”

One of the reasons, Benson says, is any socks that are donated must be new, which is why most people don’t think to donate socks.

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“That’s where the idea of collecting them came from, we decided why not address something that a lot of people aren’t aware of.

Originally the B-93 hosts were only looking for 200 pairs, but they beat that number at one of their first stops of the day.

“We stopped over at Park Enterprises, and they had 382 pairs waiting for us. The socks were for men, women and kids which was even more amazing. To think that they went far enough to think about who it is that needs these socks, we were just thinking white tube socks, and it’s just so awesome to see,” Benson said.

In total, Benson and Hanson visited about five different businesses on Monday, Jan. 29.

“We headed all the way out of town to Victory Church, and then back into town down 6 Avenue to a couple of stores. A couple organizations dropped some off here, Wear Em Out Lethbridge is one. Decor Out The Door was one of the first ones, and they bought 200 pairs of socks on day one. It was really an amazing thing to see so many people come together and donate to such a great organization like Streets Alive,” Benson said, adding it really helped them out because it was the first time they’d done something like this.

Marie McLennan, the Associate Director of Philanthropy with Streets Alive Mission, says the Mission goes through about 7,000 pairs of socks a month, so this will go a long way.

“We go through so many socks, and it’s amazing the impact that a fresh pair can have on a person’s outlook on life. When people come to us they’re tired, worn out, and kind of just run down by life. When we can give them something as simple as a brand-new pair of socks, you can see them light up,” McLennan said beamingly.

McLennan says those people get lifted up in a way that not much else can.

“We all know that experience of when you put on a fresh pair of socks when your feet are cold and suddenly everything is right in the world. Thanks to this, we’ll be able to do that for 1,600 people and we couldn’t be more thrilled.”

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