The ToastyToes Waterloo Region Fund is again hosting an annual fundraiser to buy socks for people in need.
Sharon Gilroy-Dreher originally started the organization when she decided to collect socks for Out of the Cold in honour of her late mother.
“She used to tell us if you’re feeling sorry for yourself, you should go do something for someone else and take your mind off your troubles. That was something she used to say all the time.”
Gilroy-Dreher asked friends and family to donate socks. “I was hoping that we would get 80, and I was prepared to buy most of those myself if I didn’t get there. We raised several hundred.”
The annual sock drive continued until 2019. “By then we had collected and shared over 130,000 pairs of new warm socks across the region,” she said. The socks were donated to different organizations.
“The pandemic hit in 2020. Couldn’t do physical socks, so I reached out to agencies and said, ‘Do you need socks? The last two years I gave you 40,000 pairs a year, maybe I flooded your system,’” she said. “And what I learned is our region can absorb 40,000 pairs of new socks for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness each year. And that was a shocking number for me to see.”
Gilroy-Dreher says those socks go to more than just people in shelters. They’re used by many organizations serving the needs of many different kinds of people. For example, women and children in crises services, the anti-human trafficking and sexual assault support centre or families being helped by the Wilmot Family Resource Centre.
While the socks were appreciated, Gilroy-Dreher found out that volunteers and staff had a hard time handling an onslaught of socks every year. So, instead she switched the annual event from a sock drive to a fundraiser by partnering with the Kitchener Waterloo Community Foundation.
She opened the fund “with the hope that our community would step up like they always do and wrap their arms around this ask, and they did not disappoint. So we raised $55,000, the first year, and then last year we raised $62,000. The ToastyToes fund is set up so that half the funds stay and help us build an endowment so we don’t have to keep coming back and asking and the other half are distributed within about a month after the campaign ends, so that [the organizations] can get their funds right away and start to spend them.”
Gilroy-Dreher doesn’t have a goal in mind for the amount of money to collect.
“And what’s lovely with the grant that they get from the ToastyToes fund is they can then purchase socks in the types, the sizes and the quantities they need when they need them. So it eliminates all of that warehousing issue for them, and they can meet the individual needs of the people they serve.”
Trisha Robinson is the executive director of the Wilmot Family Resource Centre.
“Since the coolness of the October weather has set in, we have distributed 52 pairs of socks in the past few weeks alone,” she said. “Imagine for a moment, you are living out on the street and your socks are wet, a warm pair of socks can help you from getting cold and sick. For those less resourced, a dry, warm pair of socks could make a difference between life and death.”
Robinson said since partnering with ToastyToes in 2016, the Wilmot Family Resource Centre has received more than 1,600 pairs of socks, and then funding to buy more. She says the socks are included with their back-to-school program, holiday hampers and made available in their free year-round clothing cupboard.
“We are grateful for our partnership with ToastyToes and the difference we can make with their donation,” she said.
To get involved, Gilroy-Dreher is encouraging people to host their own fundraisers.
“I’ve had people host a wine night and everyone pays a set fee to come and those donations get submitted to ToastyToes. We’ve had hockey teams that have done great fundraisers for us and workplace campaigns,” she said.
People can donate directly to the ToastyToes Waterloo Region Fund page on the Kitchener Waterloo Community Foundation website, www.kwcf.ca/toastytoes.
