EP32 – It’s Better To Give

Hey, in this episode of I don't know Jack about parenting, I want to talk about the importance of teaching your kids a sense of community and giving back to that community. We'll talk about in this episode right after this.

Homeless for 11 years of his life

Welcome back to, I don't know Jack about parenting and like I said in this episode we're going to be talking about an opportunity to give back to your community or just giving in general and literally I'm just going to share with you a series of stories in regards to the nonprofit that, uh, our family loves to support and that is the http://sockittoemsockcampaign.org/. This is an amazing, amazing organization that raises awareness, and I've talked about this in a previous podcast, but listen, there are so many worthy causes out there and one of them is going to touch you in some way. For me, I have a friend that's near and dear to me that, um, was homeless for 11 years of his life and it kind of boggles my mind at this point because he's such an amazing contributor to the, his community.

He just loves on people so much and maybe it's because he's gone through so much adversity. But here's the deal. He may not have ever gotten off the streets had it not been for people helping him out. So there was a day where on a live stream, right, I got this podcast platform. He and I met through live streaming through a platform called periscope. He was helping a homeless person get a meal on his live stream. He just saw a need and you guys can't even talk about what I want to talk about right now. I want to go help this person. Uh, he seems to be distressed. As a matter of fact, he was holding his hands up as if he was holding up a sign. Yeah. He didn't have a sign in his hand like, Hey, I need help, but there was no sign in his hands, so not only did he need help, but it looked like he may have been under the influence or something like that. The guy was just really, really hungry.

Sock It To 'Em Socks

So, so my friend went up to him and he helped him out. He got him a meal and he came back and he says, guys, I was homeless for 11 years. I know what it's like to be in his situation. And somehow it came around to I want to help this, you know, you know, the number one clothing need for homeless people is socks. Right. The people in his broadcasts that saying, how can we help homeless people? And Myself, I have a client who worked http://sockittoemsockcampaign.org/. I heard him talk about this campaign and he happened to be my next client, a call that I was about to get onto. When I got on. I say, hey, before we get into our call, tell me a little bit more about this sock it to em sock campaign and how I could get involved, and he told me.

Long Story Short, I brought it to my sons. The sock it to em sock campaign. You can become an ambassador of the campaign and all of their looking to do is count numbers. They'll provide you with some materials for marketing. They'll give you some ideas on how to collect socks and spread the word and basically what they do is they say this, the number one clothing needs of the homeless is socks simply because when you and I donate clothes, we donate jackets, sweaters, jeans will donate everything, but when it comes to our socks, we don't donate her old socks. We wait until there's holes in them. When we throw them out, the number one area or concern for homeless people, the way they get diseases because they're on them so much is through their feet and they don't have clean socks, so to get clean socks on the homeless fee, whether that be during summer, winter, fall or spring, it doesn't matter.

That blew my mind

They need a clean pair of socks. I always like to add this story. My friend, as he described it, he says, I used to steal a pair of new stocks out of a convenience store or drug store every two weeks. Why? Because he described it this way. A new pair of socks to a homeless person is like taking a shower to the average person. He goes, they feel amazing. Wow. I know they need food. I know they need shelter. I know needs. They need things, but a pair of socks to a homeless person is like taking a shower to the average person. That blew my mind, so instead of giving a dollar or two to a homeless person on the street has been my mission. Since becoming an ambassador to the homeless, I typically have socks in my car. I'm in my wife's car right now or I would show you, and if I see a homeless person in Nebraska for money, I literally rolled down my window and I hand them a pair of white tube socks normally and they look at me. They do a double take a look at the socks, they look at me and they typically walk away from the car slowly saying thank you, thank you. Like how did you know? So it's just an incredible experience to witness this. So let me tell you how the soccer two soc campaign has impacted. My family.

Only has we have. We done a sock drive in my son's elementary school three years in a row now. The first year we got a thousand pair of socks for the homeless. The second year we got 1500 pair of socks for the homeless and this year we got 2,500 pair of socks. So just over 5,000 pair of socks had been raised at my son's school alone.

They started in Christmas

I met a gentleman who collects diapers for ... has an organization who collects diapers for Moms who can't afford diapers for their children. I shared, he shared with me his passion. I share with him my passion. I told him it's made his family's mission. This year. They started in Christmas, two gift socks to the homeless. They got 342 pairs of socks this Christmas through his family alone and he's making it his family's mission at every birthday and things did not ask for presence or for people to bring songs. Amazing story. My Wife's company, which is a huge company, she worked for an airline. We have brought it there and they're making a way to bring it into the airline and I can't imagine how many socks are going to get distributed through. One of the major airlines would. That's in the works.

My son, where we drop off the socks, which is a homeless shelter, wants to go and make meals at this homeless shelter and he's like, Dad, we gotta get socks out to every one of those meals we make. We need to get a pair of socks and those meals, which brings us to this. Right now the whole reason I'm sharing it with you as I'm driving from Atlanta to Alabama because there's a sock mill called Z k a n o is accountable dot Com. They have high end socks, but when the socks that they produce, I'm going to the bill today. They donated over 10,000 pair to the SOC two and soc campaign because they're closest to me as a, an ambassador, the founders of the socket, tool side campaign, Sue Lee and Phyllis. You beautiful ladies asked me to go and pick up socks to distribute in the Atlanta area. I'm going to pick up 2100 pair of socks today that will get distributed over the next two weeks in the Atlanta area.

I'm going to tell you a funny story

As our temperatures are low. My son loves the socket side campaign and the involvement at the school. He wants to go to the homeless shelter and drop off the socks to these people in need. He has a greater understanding of what it is to give back only because we're giving back. And I love that he's able to learn these lessons, um, as such a young age of giving. So I'm going to tell you a funny story about giving. He's so used to giving at this point that we said, hey, what is your friend one for birthday present? Um, and he goes, you know, I really don't know. I asked him if he wanted this. 

He said he already has one, asked me one of that era, he gives him, why don't we get them a gift card? And we said, you know, I don't really want to give your seven, eight year old friend a gift card and he has money. He earns money. He's had lemonade stands. Uh, we give him financial rewards for certain things if that's what he wants. I'll say, do you want this or do you just want us to give you money if you accomplish this? And they'll say, just give me the money. Says I'm just going to go buy him a $25 gift card with my own money. If you guys don't want to buy him the gift card, I'll just buy it. And I thought to myself, I know when I was his age, there is no way I was gonna do something like that simply because money wasn't as easy to come by. But um, that's probably why.

But he understands that giving. He gets back tenfold. So as he gives, it's just amazing to me as a parent to watch how much more he wants to give, but when he gives the adults around him, see it and they want to give him, give one last example of that. Um, we're picking up the Christmas tree one day and had to go into. We bought it at a grocery store. I went inside to say, Hey, I wanted to pay for one of the Christmas tree to somebody helped me. He goes, no, you know what? It's kind of an honor system. Just go take it.

Why did he do that?

If someone says something to you could show them the receipt. I was like, fantastic. The guy says, young men, are you going to help your dad put the Christmas tree on? And he says, yeah, I'm going to help my dad. Like, without hesitation, the guy reached into his pocket and gave him a dollar. He goes, that's my tip to you for helping your dad and being a good kid. He says, dad, why did he do that? I said, because I imagined. He asked that to a lot of kids and they're like, no. My Dad's going to take care of it without hesitation. You're willing to give your effort and helped me and he want him and he wants you to continue doing that so he rewarded you for it.

So I'm almost at the bill. I'll be here shortly in about 10 minutes and I am going to post some pictures online on my blog of what it looks like to get 2100 pairs, donate it, and I hope you will visit the blog and check out the pictures today. If your kitchen is somewhere else, so the blog is attached to my podcast page, so it's one of the same, but you could go to http://bethedadyouwishyouhad.com/blog, or you go to http://bethedadyouwishyouhad.com/podcast. Both will get you to the same place and you could subscribe to the podcast or the blog there. Get on our mailing list so that you get updated every single day of when this podcast drops. We'll see you in the next episode. Find a way that your family can give back and that your kids could get involved and I promise you you will be blessed 10 times over.