It’s phenomenal to see the support for Pediatric Psychosocial Oncology. So many people reaching out with offers of help and suggested activities they could do to raise additional funds.
Actually it’s kinda overwhelming. In a good way.
I got together with Adam, Dave and Michael the other day as they wanted to do a final push on the #JimSocks fundraising.
But before I describe the upcoming promotion from our local Friday Sock Co I figured I would explain the origin of the #JimSocks pictures that showed up on social media from all over the world. It was quite exciting to watch and very honoured that they made this happen.
Here’s the story as told by Michael:
#JimSocks started out in a very small way. Jim was battling cancer, while simultaneously participating in life in his typical Jim way. I've always wondered if there was a twin; he seems to be involved in too many things for one person. Jim, Tracey and I met up at Market Collective one afternoon and Jim and I bought each other some mismatched socks. From that point on we'd send foot photos back and forth by text every time we wore the Friday Sock Company socks. The photos became a nice, funny and fun way to communicate. Jim's story of late, like many other fighters, has had its touch and go moments and it was in one of the more stressful moments that Dave Kelly and I brainstormed on how to include more people in the sock photos.
I explained it to Dave this way. In trying times we have the ability to communicate readily and easily with our loved ones. Often our default is "How are you?", "How is it going?", "how are you feeling?" and my belief is that those harmless and kind texts engage both people in a dialogue, but probably not the discourse they really wish to be having. When someone is going through a difficult time, "How are you?", is sometimes the last thing they want to hear. My thought was that a simple sock photo says all of the best things without clunky words. The sock photo says "hey, I love you, I'm thinking of you, I'm there for you, I care about you, I'm with you, I put these on and I thought of you". Dave and I purchased a couple hundred pairs of mismatched socks each and started distributing them through red's diner. Adam at Friday Socks quickly agreed to help by selling the JimSocks on his website and giving a portion of proceeds to a charity of Jim and Tracey’s choice. At Red's Diner, people purchased the socks by making a donation. Jim and Tracey have decided where the donation is going now - and we've all decided that it's time to invite more people to be part of JimSocks, not only for Jim and Tracey and our community, but for the people in all of our lives that could use a sock photo.
Now that I think about it, it was Jim's idea, he just let Dave and I think that we came up with it.
-Michael
If you go to Friday Sock Co. you can purchase a pair of milk and cookie (how appropriate for a kids program) socks knowing that 50% of the proceeds will be donated by Friday Sock Co. to the Research Chair for Pediatric Psychosocial Oncology to research and build programs for kids and their families.
Thanks guys, you are all awesome.
Even Dave.
