Great things are afoot with the Sock It To ‘Em campaign

By Lethbridge Herald on December 19, 2025.

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman
Lethbridge Herald

The 25th annual Sock It To ‘Em campaign concluded Thursday with thousands of socks collected for those in need across the city. 

What started as a way to help students in need have socks during the winter months, has evolved into collecting socks for multiple groups of people, that need socks to keep their feet warm.

Multiple agencies’ representatives attended Nord—Bridge Seniors Centre Thursday to collect socks from Sock Mountain to distribute to their clients in need. 

Charlene Kocken, senior systems navigator social worker at Nord-Bridge said socks were collected at schools in both local School Divisions and two schools from Coalhurst that are part of the Palliser School Division. 

“All the schools have brought the socks here and all the agencies have come to pick up bags of socks to take back to their clients,” said Kocken. 

She said they collected record number of socks this year and they were surprised with the results, as so many are going through difficult times. 

“We collected close to 7500 socks, and almost $700 in financial donations from the CUPE unions,” said Kocken. “We haven’t used that yet, but we plan to use it after Christmas.”

She explained they usually use any monetary donations to purchase socks to have on hand for the summer or whenever the need for socks arises. 

“Partway through the summer we go and spend that money and go to the homeless shelter, the soup kitchen and Woods Homes and we drop off socks,” said Kocken. 

She said Streets Alive was particularly thankful for the socks as they said they go through socks continuously.  

“If they run out of the socks they buy, they’re waiting to know that there is another place to get socks,” said Kocken. “You wouldn’t think how important socks are, but if your feet are cold, the rest of you is cold.” 

With This year’s sock collection surpassing 2024’s campaign by 1,500 socks, agent representatives from Wood Homes, Harbour House, Streets Alive, Lethbridge Family Services Angel Tree, the Soup Kitchen and the homeless shelter had even more socks picked from Sock Mountain this year to deliver to their clients.

Sock Mountain was built by students from Winston Churchill this year.