Three Luverne High School seniors continue to shine the spotlight on local poverty issues.
Mikayla Wiederhoeft, Courtney Wendland and Adriana Gonzalez are collecting good clean socks for distribution locally.
“Socks for Souls” aims to collect 100 pairs.
“We found out that socks are the most demanded thing for the homeless,” Gonzalez said.
“Even if the people who need socks aren’t homeless, we are still taking a step to help people in need.”
The students may partner with the local Sharing Hearts Are Reaching Everyone (SHARE) this fall to distribute the socks.
The students are Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) members through the school.
They selected “DeFEET Poverty” as their leadership in action project, which challenges members to stretch their service learning skills into an activity that helps their communities.
“With this whole project it has truly opened my eyes and my mind to the many different ways our world is affected by poverty,” Wendland said.
“Poverty is more than just the materialistic side, it’s emotional and it’s eating away at the world.”
Collecting socks is one more step the students are taking to help people in need and promote their poverty message.
They organized a “DeFEET Poverty” walk last fall to bring attention to the various aspects of poverty and built a “Box City” for students to experience homelessness.
They plan to repeat both of these activities this spring.
Collection of “Socks for Souls” continues through March 27.
Any new or slightly used sock pairs are accepted along with single socks that have lost their matches.
“A lot of people have stray socks that they have lying around, so they might as well give them a purpose,” Wiederhoeft said.
“In the type of winter weather we are having, it’s always helpful to have a pair of socks, whether they match or not,” added Wendland.
Collection stations are located at the community library in downtown Luverne and at Teal’s Market.
The public could also drop socks at the middle-high school office.
“Most of us don’t need to worry about having socks to wear, but it’s important to understand that others do,” Gonzalez said.
“The greatest thing we can give people in poverty is not always money or clothing, but time and understanding as we place ourselves in their shoes.”