BATON ROUGE — The 21st year of “Sock it to Me!” Sock Drive is happening now, and the Family Resource Group Foundation’s goal this year is to collect 51,000 pairs of socks throughout several parishes. This goal is up from last year’s goal, which collected over 50,000 pairs of socks.
The drive started 21 years ago after Amy Plaisance, the founder of the Baton Rouge Parents Magazine, met a homeless couple in a hospital ER. The couple was there due to a problem with the man’s feet. His socks and shoes were both wet, and Plaisance felt the urge to give socks.
She later found out that socks were the top item requested by people in homeless shelters, which inspired her to start the sock drive.
The Sock it to Me! Sock Drive has sponsors and participating businesses, libraries, schools and other organizations that hold drives and collect socks in several parishes. Socks are collected throughout East Baton Rouge, Ascension, Livingston, Pointe Coupee, Iberville, and West Baton Rouge parishes, and stay within these communities.
This year, socks are being collected at various locations in multiple parishes now until Dec. 12th.
According to the Family Resource Group Foundation, each collection site can choose the recipient organization of their choice, letting socks stay in the same community that donated them. Socks are also handed out directly by drive volunteers at homeless shelters, soup kitchens, clinics, and more.
The Livingston Parish Libraries (LPL) is one of the locations donors can drop off new pairs of socks in Livingston Parish; all LPL branches are drop-off locations. All new, unused socks collected by LPL will go toward The Family Village, a Livingston Parish-based non-profit organization.
Over the past two years, the LPL has collected nearly 7,000 pairs of socks from locals in the community. This year, the library is requesting that donors bring socks for infants and young children, because the Family Village has many adult size socks from the past two years.
Other donation sites in participating parishes can be found here.
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