Thornhill girls’ Odd Sox project taking off

Yorkregion.com
Dec. 23, 2015
By Simone Joseph

During their one free day off each week, pre-teens Charley Rangel and Carly Goldhar have been visiting homeless shelters and collecting socks.

Not the typical way two 10 year olds spend a lazy Sunday.

Sunday is their one day of leisure, sandwiched between hectic lives filled with school and extra-curricular activities.

The Thornhill girls created the Odd-Sox Project - a sock drive to gather mismatched socks for people in homeless shelters and outreach centres throughout York Region and Toronto.

To date, the duo have collected 12,000 pairs of socks.

Charley and Carly felt compassion for the homeless people and started the initiative to help.

“We see a lot of homeless people. We feel bad for them,” Carly said. “We always gave them food”, she told The Liberal last month.

The Thornhill youngsters have known each other since they were two years old. They attend the same Thornhill elementary school.

The girls have been collecting odd socks throughout the fall, turning them into pairs.

The initiative has caught on, encouraging people to collect socks for drives at schools, condos and malls.

They’ve donated socks to seven shelters so far.

In fact, interest has grown so much that Carly calls the work she does for the project, such as responding to e-mail, her “full-time job”.

The drive has extended to stores in Upper Canada Mall in Newmarket, Vaughan Mills and Markville Mall.

Two women in a condo at Yonge Street and Clark Avenue were inspired by their story featured in The Liberal and organized their own drive in the building, collecting 650 pairs of socks. The women hugged the girls when they came to pick up the socks, telling the girls how proud they are of them.

People on the west coast want to get in on the action, too. People in California and Vancouver have contacted the two Thornhill families about starting a similar project. And there has been interest from Winnipeg as well.

Both girls have garages filled with socks and they are looking for someone who will donate a storage facility.

“We didn’t anticipate growing like this,” Carly said.

The girls have made a special effort to reach out to schools, creating ambassador positions for students actively involved in their schools. These ambassadors will go with the girls to drop off donations.

Recently, during a media interview, Carly surprised her mother while answering a question about their future and next steps.

“I want to be global,” she said.