Hannah's Socks • warm feet, warm hearts

We love it when businesses around Toledo put up a Socks Box to help the homeless. If you are around Secor Rd. in Toledo, stop in at Jeff Ogg's Tax and Accounting Services and drop a pair of socks in the Hannah's Socks Box! We are committed to helping children get a great start when school begins in August! Jeff and his wife Deby will make sure that the socks get to the Hannah's Socks office for you. We are in need of kids socks from 1st grade to 8th. When you're at the store, care, share, give a pair! You can find Jeff at www.oggcpa.com.

After touring the facilities last week I have a deeper understanding about what they do. They offer a program called Ready For Life to help their guests become independent. This program addresses the personal needs of their guest (I love that they call them guests) by developing an individualized care program to help transform their lives from homeless to independence. Cherry Street has a success rate of 74%.

I had the pleasure of meeting one of the men who is soon to graduate from the program! Their Monroe Street Facility and Sparrow's Nest provide shelter and and life-changing programs to men and women. The mission is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and feeds about 700 meals a day to men, women and children. They are the only shelter in Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan that serves 3 meals a day, 7 days a week! Since they are privately funded they need all of our help.  Read more »

Many, many pairs of socks arrive in the Hannah's Socks office from all over the world. Most have nice letters with them. The letters give us a connection to the person sending the socks. I've always said that I would love to meet each person that has been involved in a sock collection. I got my wish last Thursday.

Les, Diane and their son Lester Sander drove from Loda, Illinois to Perrysburg, Ohio to bring 1,025 pairs of socks to help our homeless. Les had contacted me a few months ago by email and told me that they were going to do their part to help Hannah's Socks. He and his wife Diane had a bet going on to see how many socks they could collect. Diane set her sights high and she won the bet! Many people in their community got involved in the sock collection to help her get over 1000 pairs.

Thursday morning we got to meet the Sander family and their cousin Chris who is from Toledo. We talked, took pictures and then headed over to The Cherry Street Mission to take a tour and hand out socks to the homeless. If you've never toured Cherry Street, I suggest that you do. Avis and Yolanda and Rosalyn planned a very informative tour. All of us learned a lot that day. We even met a man who was soon to graduate from the Ready For Life program that Cherry Street offers. They do so much at Cherry Street that I want to share with everyone, but that will have to be another blog.

We appreciate the Sander family and everyone from their community that helped out! The socks got passed out that afternoon and as we all saw on the faces of the homeless they were very happy to receive new socks for their feet.

Our good friends at St. Luke's in Temperance Michigan contacted Hannah's Socks to tell us that they wanted us to be part of their VBS. Kim asked if Hannah could come and share her story of the homeless man she felt compassion for on that cold Thanksgiving day in 2004. Vic and Hannah had a great time meeting over 100 VBS kids and the staff! Kim reports that the VBS kids and the St. Luke's congregational family collected over 140 packages of underwear for boys and girls! Hannah said, "Wow, the kids will love getting these." We are so thankful to all of our friends at St. Luke's. Please check out their VBS slideshow at www.stlukeschurch.net.

Walnut Grove United Methodist Church is located between Dunkirk and Kenton Ohio. Three bags traveled this morning to the Hannah's Socks office via car. Nancy Musselman, who is the director of their Jr. church, dropped off the socks on her way to Michigan. Nancy had read about Hannah's Socks in Guidepost and thought her Jr. church would help.

The entire church participated! Nancy said that Toledo is 70-75 miles North of her church so they had fun figuring out the feet and then miles of socks they had collected. All in all Walnut Grove UMC collected 283 pairs of new socks! Nancy also shared that they are in the process of beginning a food pantry in conjunction with neighboring churches. "I believe that God has directed us to do more outreach in our community. Maybe the collection of socks started it," she said. Many thanks go out to Pastor Jeff Waite, Nancy and the entire congregation! We wish you many blessings as you go forth with your food pantry plans.

I always say that it has been a great day when much of my day is spent counting and sorting socks! Today I had the pleasure of counting huge bagfuls of socks that the Cedar Creek kids and parents graciously donated to help the homeless and less fortunate in Toledo. Because of their generous donation we have gone way over the 10,000 mark! Our goal for 2008 is to collect and distribute 30,000 pairs of socks.

Thank you Andy for organizing this sock drive from Cedar Creek! I have counted over 1000 pairs and I know you have more coming in! It warms my heart to see the generosity of others, especially in these difficult economic times.

One of the fun summer projects that Hannah and I get invited to do is to speak at churches during their VBS week. This morning we were at Sylvania First United Methodist Church on Erie Street. We had a great time with all of the kids. Julie Carter was the gal in charge. She really had their program organized and I saw a lot of neat projects lining the halls. Since the theme was serving others from your family to your community and beyond Julie thought it would be great for Hannah to tell her story about serving the homeless people. They are also collecting socks for us to distribute! Hannah and I thank everyone for welcoming us and allowing Hannah and I to tell the Hannah's Socks story.

Today Hannah, myself and Joyce were invited to speak at the Exchange Club. We met some really nice people who love to serve their community. After a really good lunch Hannah and I went to the podium. Before I told how Hannah's Socks began Hannah was invited to ring the big bell to begin the meeting. Later she told me that this was her favorite part. I told the beautiful story of my then four year old who wanted to give up her little socks to warm the feet of a homeless man. Even though I have told the story countless times I still shed tears when I think back to that day. Joyce spoke about the business part of operating a charity. Hannah didn't say much but she did sum it all up with one sentence. "I want to help the homeless people."

I want to thank Sally Akers for inviting us and asking the West Toledo Exchange Club members to bring a bag of socks. It was a great afternoon with some very caring people. Did you know that the national headquarters was located in Toledo? I did not realize that until today. They do a lot to help others. Please check out their website www.nationalexchangeclub.org.

Today Hannah received a box of letters, photos and unique gifts from students who support her cause at the AFNORTH International Elementary School in the Netherlands. They even sent her an authentic pair of clogs!

She wrote a cute thank-you letter to Mrs. Campbell and the students; click "Read More" to see the letter as well as photos of Hannah with her goodies.  Read more »

You'll recall in early April, we heard from Ryan Carlson, a family friend who is serving in France with Campus Crusade. Ryan said he was going to Romania with French college students to work in an orphanage. "We'll be doing programs, skits, crafts, etc., that will teach stories from the gospels to the kids. Normally, when teams go to help there, they bring gifts to the kids. We asked ahead what they want/need, and overwhelmingly they said.. SOCKS!"

The Hannah's Socks team felt honored to help Ryan and his team and we rushed to send boxes of socks to him. Ryan recently shared news of his efforts as well as a couple photos. Ryan tells us:

"It was really a blessing to be able to go to Romania. Personally, I was really touched by being able to serve and love the children there. Our team was split into two, and each morning and afternoon we would go to a different orphanage with a bag full of socks and lots of love. We spent about half our time doing the skits & activities we planned and the other half playing and having fun with the kids. Then at the end each time we gave a big back of socks to the supervisor of the orphanage who then distributed them to the kids.

"Their smiles pretty much said it all! They also said "Mult'umesc" (thank you!) to everyone who made this possible. The staff & kids both were really thankful for the gifts that we were able to provide for them. So from our team, the staff in Romania & the children there, thank you to everyone who gave time, money and socks to bless the children in Bucharest! Your generosity and service brought warmth and love into their lives."

Thanks for the report, Ryan, and I know I speak for everyone on the team in saying that we were very happy to help. Keep up the good work!

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