Social enterprise OneSok is helping local charities prepare for winter, with 200 of their pairs of socks having been donated to Mama Lana’s Community Foundation in April.
Founder Karen Mousley is hoping the donations can continue in a local sock drive, called the #sockchallenge, eventually reaching a goal of 1000 pairs donated to Mama Lana’s in order to help those in need throughout the oncoming colder months.
Socks are often the most requested item for homeless charities, especially at this time of year.
“They’ve got to be new, that’s why it’s so much more difficult,” Lana Borg, the founder of Mama Lana’s said.
“People are really great with the clothes, we get some really good second-hand quality clothes, but because we can’t take second-hand underwear it makes it a bit hard.
“By donating, they can always buy and give us a packet of socks or underwear … people don’t think of it, I think.”
However, the OneSok donation is likely to last Mama Lana’s and those they support for at least the coming winter.
OneSok is a social enterprise founded just this year by Ms Mousley and her husband, made with the mission to ‘change the world, one sock at a time’.
They are primarily focused on ethical fashion and sell socks that are ethically made in order to align with their objective of standing up against modern slavery, two causes that are seemingly linked.
“Around 90-95 per cent of socks that are made around the world are made in sweatshops, and that includes things like forced labour and child labour,” she said.
“Around 200 million children around the world actually work in these kinds of places, making garments including socks, which we’re very much against.”
OneSok undertook rigorous checks to ensure their wholesalers ascribe to good labour laws.
You can help both OneSok and Mama Lana’s by donating socks. Mama Lana’s can be found at 56 Woodriff Street in Penrith. Drop off times are Monday to Friday 9.30am to 1pm, then 6.30pm to 8pm, and on Saturday 3.30pm to 8pm.
Erin Christie
Erin Christie is the Weekender's entertainment and community news journalist. She has worked with Are Media, Good Reading Magazine and a host of other publications.