Socktober drive brings in 1,300 pairs of socks

MOSES LAKE — Some feet will be warmer this winter in Moses Lake. A whole lot of feet, in fact. 

Greenpoint Technologies and Red Door Cafe’s joint project, Socktober, brought in 1,300 pairs of socks last month, according to an email from organizer Amy Ward. 

This is the first year that Moses Lake has done Socktober and the response was overwhelming, said Phyllis Lavalle, Ward’s mother, who helped her count and package the socks Nov. 8.  

The drive was given a big boost by Bombas, a nationwide clothing retailer that specializes in socks. 

“I was at a yard sale, and there was a cute pair of socks in kind of a beat-up package,” Lavalle said. “And I said to the lady, ‘This is for the sock drive. Would you consider this (unsuitable) to have in the sock drive? Because the wrapping is bad but the socks are good.’ And she said ‘I work at the food bank in Granite Falls, and (the food bank) gets donations of socks form the Bombas company on a regular basis.’ So Amy wrote a letter to Bombas and … Bombas sent two boxes of 250 (pairs) of socks, 88 pounds of socks.” 

Ward and Lavelle sorted and counted all the socks themselves in a back room at Greenpoint, Lavelle said. 

“We joked about, just how many homeless are there (in a community this size)?” Lavelle said. 

The socks will be distributed by Care Moses Lake, Ward wrote. 

Besides the Bombas donations, socks were collected at Greenpoint’s facilities in both Bothell and Moses Lake, as well as by Red Door, Movement Mortgage and Youth Dynamics, Ward wrote. 

“Even without the 500 (pairs) from Bombas, that’s 800 from the community,” Lavelle said. “That’s pretty darn good.”