Socktober is an annual event celebrated in October every year. It is a nationwide movement to collect socks for people who are currently experiencing homelessness. Socks are the most needed and least donated item to shelters. The holiday invites kids and grown-ups to start sock drives to benefit their local homeless shelters. Since 2011, socks have been donated by participants on all seven continents.
Southshore Charter Academy recently held its Socktober event to benefit ECHO.
“Southshore Charter Academy’s Anchored for Life team organized a sock collection to support ECHO,” said Southshore Charter Academy’s principal, Amy Sams. “The annual event has students in each homeroom bring in new socks to donate. In exchange, students have the opportunity to wear ‘silly socks’ with their school uniform. This year, the school exceeded their goal and collected 5,000 pairs of new socks. Community outreach is an important part of the school’s mission and vision as students and staff strive for success in all endeavors. The students also got to celebrate their success with an ice cream party.”
The school’s Anchored for Life program is for children whose parents are in the military. The mission of the program is to provide proven resources and strategies to children so they can become resilient, confident and resourceful to create a better world for themselves and others. The purpose of the program is to design educational products that change youth’s lives by helping them become happier, healthier and more confident.
“We have a lot of students whose parents are military-related, so this program is a perfect fit with our school’s mission,” Sams said.
ECHO was thrilled with the donation of socks from Southshore Charter Academy.
“Amy Sams, the principal of SouthShore Charter Academy has been a loyal sponsor of ECHO for a few years,” said ECHO’s development manager, Steven McKinnon. “She and her team of teachers, parents and students held a Socktober sock collection drive for us that resulted in them collecting some 5,000 pairs of much-needed kids’ socks. We can’t thank Amy and all involved enough with helping our neighbors in need with these creative fun drives. We want to celebrate with Amy and her students who just keep striving to make our community a better place to live.”
Southshore Charter Academy is located at 11667 Big Bend Rd. in Riverview. If you would like to help ECHO during the upcoming holiday season, you can visit its website at https://echofl.org/ for various opportunities.
