Photo provided A bin of donated socks is shown, part of Columbus North senior Adler Larson’s senior project.
A local senior project seeks to offer some practical comfort to those in need this holiday season.
Columbus North Senior Adler Larson is collecting donations of new and unused socks for the school’s Bull Dog Pantry. The food pantry will then provide the items to those in need.
“It’s mostly for the students and their families who don’t have clean or warm socks over the winter,” said Larson.
Anyone looking to donate can contact him at [email protected] to arrange pickup or have socks delivered to 204 Newsom Ave., Columbus, IN 47201. Individuals can also Venmo him funds to purchase more socks.
While Larson is seeking a variety, he noted that there have been fewer donations of women’s and kid’s socks, so these would be the best options for donations. He will be collecting donations until Nov. 1.
His original goal was to collected 2,000 pairs of socks; however, he has already surpassed that number and had a little m more than 2,600 as of Oct. 17.
“I just hope it provides comfort and warmth to the families in the winter, but also the convenience of not having to ask for socks in this coming season,” said Larson.
When asked about the origin of his “Socks for Students” project, Larson said that it actually didn’t start with him but instead came from the family of his project mentor, Regan Littrell.
Littrell’s brother, Andy Russell, died suddenly from a heart attack in December of 2014. Since then, the family has worked to keep his memory alive. However, it became harder to keep up morale in 2018, when someone stole Littrell’s parents’ car right around the anniversary of Russell’s death.
“My youngest son, at the time, and I decided that we could either be angry and upset as well, or we could try to do something to combat those feelings and do something nice for somebody to make us feel better,” Littrell recalled.
Teddy Littrell, who was 10 years old at the time, had already come up with the idea of making homemade cards for residents of a local nursing home. Following the theft of his grandparents’ car — and the need for even more holiday cheer — he added the ambition of giving warm socks as well. A couple of his friends, Courtland and Anna Reed, thought it would also be nice to bring the residents homemade Christmas cookies.
The initial goal was to collect 64 pairs of socks, one for each resident of the nursing home. At first, Littrell thought it was impossible.
But something even more impossible happened — the family received more than 500 pairs, which were then donated to multiple nursing homes, Columbus North and East’s food pantries and an outreach program for struggling families at Southside Elementary.
Littrell’s oldest son, Carson, later decided to turn the sock drive into his senior project in 2019 and donated the proceeds to East and North’s food pantries. Her middle son, Wil, did the same in 2021.
Since 2018, the Littrells have collected and donated more than 9,000 pairs of socks to local community members. Larson’s contribution will bring the total to over 11,000.
Larson is a family friend and has run cross-country alongside Littrell’s sons. At the start of the school year, he asked for permission to take on Socks for Students as his senior project.
Littrell replied that she would be more than happy to give her blessing and act as a mentor, so long as two conditions were met. One was that Teddy, who is now a freshman at North, will be able to take it on as his senior project when the time comes. The other was that the project will continue to be done in her brother’s name.
“He loved Columbus North High School,” said Littrell. “My parents used to teach at North. We all went to North High School. My brother was very involved in athletics and in performing arts at North. And so I said to Adler, ‘You can do it. I just want to make sure that you keep my brother’s memory at the forefront of it, because North meant a lot to him.’”
