Single socks find 'sole' mates in charity drive for the homeless

An unusual project has collected over 16,000 mismatched socks to donate to the homeless around the country.

The Odd Sock Project was launched on June 19 and as of the end of August had collected 16,387 socks.

The project's founder, Abrie du Plooy, said the collected socks are sorted, paired and then distributed.

"We have advertised for beneficiaries to contact us and many have. Our main distribution channel is through various soup kitchens that feed the homeless people. It works well as the homeless come to the soup kitchen. We have also distributed socks to shelters, orphanages (as we get so many baby socks), churches with outreach programmes and of course informal settlements," he said.

Du Plooy said the project has no end date.

"I have not thought of an end date yet as the project is getting more traction every day. I do find that we received a lot of anklets or short summer socks during winter as people not only donate odd socks but also their unused socks."

"I predict that we will see the same trend during summer where people donate matching pairs of long, warm winter socks that are not in use. Our plan is to stockpile these for the 2020 winter," he said.

Du Plooy urged those that are unable to drop off single socks at collection centres to match their own pairs to "hand out as they drive along or see fit".