Sock This Way: Activating a "Give This Way" Campaign

“Sock This Way was a very special endeavor for myself, my family and my work community. It meant so much to give back to Felix with the help of those I love most.”

-Olivia Colavito, Jr. Board Member  

While working in a middle school as a permanent substitute, Jr. Board Member Olivia Colavito wanted to put on an in-kind donation drive for Felix as a way to activate her community and supply foster youth with essentials for the colder months. After speaking with Amanda at Felix, Olivia was able to define her goal based on the needs of Felix kids as well as how accessible the materials would be for her community to gather. By holding this donation drive in schools, depending on the grade level or extra-curriculars, teachers and facilitators were able to incentivize the donations with extra points or community service hours.

Olivia expanded the reach of the sock drive by having her mom run a drive with her colleagues at her high school. For a middle and high school community, socks and journals were incredibly accessible and turnkey for that population. Socks are relatively inexpensive and could be found at a wide variety of stores, enabling students and parents to pick up a single pair or package during one off shopping trips. In the spirit of other Felix events, Olivia coined the term “Sock This Way” to create consistent messaging and a basis for promotional materials.

The cost of materials and promotion for the drive was relatively low, using “upcycled” printer paper boxes that were decorated with the “Sock This Way” logo, and printing flyers created on Canva to hang around the school. Olivia made a connection with the student government advisors who gave her the opportunity to hop on the morning announcement video that is played during homeroom as a way to promote the drive. There were several advantages to using this as a platform, as it enabled her to provide consistent progress updates and promotions. It was the most exciting being able to announce a home for the socks at Mott Haven Academy halfway through the drive. This gave the students a concrete idea of where these donations were going and what impact they were making.

Sock This Way spanned from the Monday after Thanksgiving to the Friday before the winter holiday and donations were dropped at the greeters desk and in the library. The drive was endorsed by the teachers in the building, but was not used as an extra credit incentive due to the school’s policies. In the case of the high school, students were offered either extra credit or community service hours for the National Honor Society. These teachers would collect the socks from their students to keep closer track of who made donations and deliver them to the main drop off area periodically throughout the drive.

At the end of the drive, the Sock This Way team delivered nearly 800 pairs of socks and 100+ journals to Mott Haven Academy in the Bronx, with the socks distributed for the students and their families the day before their winter break kicked off. Any extras were kept in a box in their lobby for students to access at any point during the year. At the conclusion of the drive, Olivia sent out thank you cards to those who helped make the sock drive possible and to those who donated/facilitated donations.