Sock campaign helping those walking the road to recovery

By Herald on October 22, 2021.

Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Workers load boxes of socks collected as part of the Canada wide Socktober campaign on Wednesday at On Side Restoration.

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman – Lethbridge Herald

Participants of a company campaign to collect socks for charity have been overwhelmed by the response to help those on the road to recovery.

The Socktober campaign, an initiative of On Side Restoration, collected 3646 pairs of socks locally. 

“This was the first inaugural campaign. I am hoping that we can do it yearly,” said On Side Restoration’s Jennifer Vadnais.  

Vadnais reached out to the company’s vendors, with several donating 200 pairs of socks, one donated 400 pairs, and the biggest donation was one of 575 pairs. 

“That just blows me away, that people are so amazing to donate to charity especially with everything going on, money is tight sometimes and it’s just awesome,” added Vadnais.  

Grant’s closet, out of Southern Alcare, was chosen to receive the socks. The charity provides gently used clothing and toiletries for people in recovery. Grant’s closet was founded by Paige Lamane Sinclair after she lost her son Grant to addiction in 2020.

“I felt overwhelmed when Jennifer said that she wanted to take this on as a project for Grant’s closet, because we are pretty small, we are just a little closet,” said Lamane Sinclair. 

Lamane Sinclair who was only expecting about 500 pairs of socks was very surprised and overwhelmed with the response and ready to share them with as many people as possible. 

“I am not just taking this and squirreling them away and holding them for a select group of people, I am sharing them with all the various groups around that are in addiction recovery,” said Lamane Sinclair. 

The socks will be distributed to recovery and detox facilities in the Lethbridge area and one location in Calgary. 

“I will be taking socks to the Calgary Dream Centre which is where my son died, and he was working there. It’s a recovery agency, it’s probably the biggest one in Calgary, so it’s going to feel really good to do that because that’s what he was doing at the time… working there when he relapsed and passed away,” said Lamane Sinclair. 

Lamane Sinclair believes that there is nothing like a brand new pair of socks, while someone is trying to start, while they are on their way up moving through addiction.

“Even something as simple as that, you should see how they react to the clothing and things that we provide them, because it’s one more connection with the real world that they maybe haven’t been part of for a long time,” said Lamane Sinclair. 

Grant’s closet is not a registered charity. “I’m just a mom who opened up a little closet in a treatment centre, in the hopes to help others through addiction, and the spread of just that,”added Lamane Sinclair. 

This Canada wide Socktober campaign was also a company contest, where the local On Side Restoration placed third, while Red Deer location won first place with 4532 pairs and the Edmonton location placed second with 4520 pairs. The total collected across Canada was 34,129 pairs of socks

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