Hannah's Socks • warm feet, warm hearts

We've received an exciting update from a special group of Hannah's Socks supporters in the Netherlands: a local TV news station recently covered the fifth-grade students at AFNORTH (NATO) International School and their efforts to help take Socks Drives international. Click to view the video of Hannah's pals helping from abroad.

HOPE Services Senior and Adult Support Services Program provides programming and support for adults with developmental disabilities. To help participants live successfully, three main structural components are incorporated in the program. One of those components encourages participants to fully engage in life, and this includes participants being involved in the Volunteer Project of the Month. This month, they selected Hannah's Socks!

We'd like to thank the Participants’ Council for choosing Hannah's Socks, and to thank all the participants who helped make this wonderful contribution.

Thanks to Cincinnati team volunteer Alisa, who loaded her car up with socks today and paid a visit to The Drop Inn Center, a homeless shelter in the Over-The-Rhine neighborhood. The Drop Inn Center is a grassroots community of shelter residents, staff, and volunteers, organized to end homelessness by promoting human dignity, supporting positive social change, and offering a wide variety of services. Hannah's Socks is very pleased to support this worthy organization! With yet another snowstorm headed towards southwest Ohio for the weekend, hopefully we'll make a difference in the lives of the Center's clients.

If you live in Northwest Ohio, be sure to pick up a copy of today's Toledo Blade. Staff Writer JC Reindl touches on all the newest developments with our organization and includes a couple cute pictures of Hannah in the Suburban News section of the paper. You also can read the story online.

You may recall a while back that Hannah, her brother Caleb and her father Vic made an appearance on "Bridges," a weekly program that plays on Toledo WTVG Channel 13. We've posted the entire show on the Hannah's Socks YouTube page. The video is divided into three clips, so be sure to start with Part 1.

The most exciting emails and letters we receive come from folks who hear Hannah's story and immediately take action (without any prompting from our team at all!). This week we heard from Cincinnati's Sharon Scott, who adopted the Hannah cause and set a goal to collect 300 pairs of socks from friends and family.

She quickly passed 300, raised her goal to 600, and her final count landed at 906 pairs of socks collected! In her email to us she praised her many generous friends, and told us she'll be taking care of delivery for us by visiting the Drop Inn Center and the Mary Magdalene House, both in downtown Cinci. She's also going to reach out to the ladies and kids at Madisonville Education Assistance Center, located in a Cinci suburb. She said she went to grade school in this area and the neighborhood has really fallen on hard times.

Best of all, Sharon says she'll take up the sock-collecting gauntlet again in the Fall. She told us, "This was so easy to do and hopefully the sock fever will spread!" We couldn't have said it better ourselves. Let's have a round of applause for Sharon!

Not surprisingly, the Hannah's Socks team is always on the lookout for ways to save time and get things done more efficiently. One of our core business activities involves personally contacting and thanking each person, business, or organization that lends us a hand. Cranking out these letters takes time, but to us, it's worth every second.

So you can imagine our interest when we discovered SendOutCards, a service that helps its customers "print it, stuff it and mail it" in less than a minute. Their website says, "With this incredible tool, not only can you remember people and share appreciation, you can motivate, uplift, encourage and truly make a difference."

Just what we needed, eh? Of course, it gets better: We've hooked up with SendOutCards' Julie Higby, who not only is helping us get started with the service but also has offered to give something back: She's going to donate the proceeds from her SendOutCards' sales to Hannah's Socks and the Wood County Humane Society through the end of April. (Up to $150 donated per account activation!)

The service is a great idea for charities and businesses and works for personal greetings too (you'll never forget another birthday).

To contact Julie, visit www.sendoutcards.com/thepapercoach or call 419-902-3497. She'll give you 2 FREE cards and she'll personally walk you through the card-sending process. Be sure to tell her Hannah's Socks sent you.

Thanks Julie!

We were very excited to hear from Sandra Campbell, the teacher who has spread Hannah's Story to the Netherlands. Believe it or not, when she's state-side, she stays right where Hannah's Socks HQ is located in Perrysburg, Ohio!

Sandra tells us her fifth-grade students at AFNORTH (NATO) International School were thrilled to hear from our co-founder Doris and to see the coverage their Sock Drive had received in the Toledo Blade. The students plan to write letters to Hannah; when told, Hannah asked Doris if they could get in the Hannah's Socks van and go for a visit! She thought maybe the Netherlands wasn't much further away than a drive to her grandparents' house in Michigan.

Hannah's team is happy to have made contact with Sandra and we look forward to interacting with her students and meeting her when she's back in the U.S.

It's going to be a long drive to pick up this donation! In today's Toledo Blade, Toledo native Sandra Campbell talks about how she's told Hannah's Story to the fifth grade students she teaches at AFNORTH (NATO) International School in the Netherlands. Inspired by the story, the students launched the first-ever international Sock Drive last week! Click here to read the full story on the newspaper's website.

Simply amazing!

You can learn about the school here: www.afnorth-is.com.

P.S. If Sandra and her students are reading this blog, please contact us!

More great news from the city of Cincinnati: The Student Council at Silverton Elementary School, under the leadership of Ms. Dendy, held old-fashioned "Sock Hop" dances for their students recently. The Council encouraged students to donate a pair of socks when attending the event. The students really came through, filling the trunk of a volunteer's car to the point of bursting. The Cincinnati team sorted and bundled the donations, and the lion's share were delivered to the Hamilton County YWCA Battered Woman's Shelter during a particularly cold snap on the weather. Way to go Silverton Elementary!