Video by Jess DiProspero and Rahmere Griffin
In honor of Cabrini University’s 60th Anniversary, the community attempted to break a Guinness World Record™ for the largest single-location sock drive in eight hours. The previous record is 2,459 socks. The Cabrini community unofficially claimed that record by collecting a total of 3,916 socks in Grace Hall on Wednesday, Feb. 15, from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.
This record was more importantly about helping men and women experiencing homelessness by providing them with warm, comfortable socks.
“The reason I asked Cabrini to collect men’s socks is because if you took a look at the homeless population in Philadelphia, 85 percent of the population are men,” Tom Costello, founder of the Joy of Sox, said.
The Joy of Sox, the 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Tom Costello, supported this challenge alongside his wife Nancy Costello, one of Cabrini’s Trustees. Cabrini has been partnered with the Joy of Sox since it was founded in 2010 and hosted this event in order to engage the community in acts of service to be able to give back.
“In our 60th anniversary committee we decided that we wanted to do something to celebrate the 60th in a way that is giving back,” Jacqueline Marciano, director of alumni engagement and annual giving for institutional advancement, said.
Throughout the week up until the event, volunteers set up “sock shops” around the campus in order for the internal community members to be able to purchase bundles of high quality wool socks and then bring them to the Sox for 60 event. Additionally, alumni had the option of donating online so that they could participate if they were not able to actually come to campus and purchase socks.
During the day of the event, there were multiple activities that people could get involved with after turning in their socks for donation to keep the energy going for all eight hours.
“We had [games], we got pre-cut socks so people could write their name on them to show that they participated and we also had letters where people wrote about the event as well as wrote notes of encouragement that were included in the boxes of socks and given to people at the shelter experiencing homelessness,” Marciano said.
The Joy of Sox has expanded since it started donating socks to the shelters in the Philadelphia area. The organization has distributed more than 200,000 socks to those experiencing homelessness in the Philadelphia region, in 28 states and three countries.
“Our mission is to provide joy to the homeless by giving them socks,” Tom Costello said. “The vision, which started a couple years ago, was to provide socks to a shelter in Philadelphia, but that expanded. Right now, our mission is to provide socks to every person experiencing homelessness in the United States a few times a year.”
The idea of starting this non-profit came to Tom two years after his first time going to a shelter with his wife Nancy.
“I used to be a homeless phobic, I was really afraid of people that were experiencing homelessness,” Tom Costello said. “Ironically, Nancy was volunteering at a local soup kitchen and homeless shelter. I could hardly get out of the car. Eleanor Roosevelt once said ‘do something each day that scares you,’ and I was scared.”
In the car ride home after leaving the shelter, Nancy had told him about how she had been working with a podiatrist who told her about how people experiencing homelessness have problems with their feet and never get donations of socks.
“Two years later, I bought a couple pairs of socks at Target and went back to the church around Christmas time and started to hand them out,” Tom Costello said. “This lady came up to me and did not make any eye contact with me and put her bag out so that I could put the socks in her bag. I drop the socks in and say ‘Merry Christmas, God bless you,’ and she walks away. As I am waiting for the next person, I hear a voice say ‘can I please have a pair for a friend who could not be here,’ and I said sure. Then, she comes back, looks at me and starts to cry. She said, ‘No one has ever given me a pair of socks before.’ She reached out to hug me, and I had never touched a homeless person before, and I hugged her back. That was my epiphany moment and I said to myself ‘I have to be the sock guy.’”
Video by Jess DiProspero and Rahmere Griffin
In the beginning, Tom started out by taking sock donations to local shelters in Philadelphia. Once the Philadelphia Inquirer picked up the story of what Tom and fellow volunteers were doing, so did other multiple news services. Soon after, contributions started being sent to the Joy of Sox — which is operated from the Costello’s home— and calls and emails started coming in from 16 states asking for socks.
“The internet has really spearheaded this, I don’t think it could have taken off the way it did without it,” Nancy Costello said.
Providing socks to those experiencing homelessness has been an eye-opening experience for the Costellos and those who have volunteered throughout the process of raising the necessary funds, collecting socks and distributing socks for those experiencing homelessness.
“This gives people a sort of pause to stop and think about something that they would normally take for granted,” Nancy Costello said. “Just a pair of socks, you know it just raises a level of awareness in people’s minds that ‘oh my goodness, when I put my socks on in the morning, some people don’t have that luxury.’ It is important to have that recognition.”
Jaclyn –
SUPER JOB! Thank you so very much.
– Tom Costello, Jr. aka Chief Sock Person
i attended the first “joy of sox” sock drive which was held at Nancy and Tom’s home…it was mostly a couple of neighbors and some close friends with good intentions and hoagies…it sort of reminded me of a old time paint party but not as messy and more sobriety…it great to see how far its come