Allstate employee Bridget McClain approached her boss, Jeremy Radabaugh, one day and said she wanted to help people, focusing on the homeless.
She was sitting in the office and her feet were cold and she realized many people struggle with the same problem on a much greater scale.
“She started doing some research and found out that socks were the number one requested item in homeless shelters and noticed that lots of local organizations were doing coat drives, but none of them were doing a sock drive,” Radabaugh said.
Being a local small business, the employees of Allstate, on Earl L. Core Road, wanted to use that as a platform to give back. What started as an ask for 500 pairs of socks turned into 1,700 donated pairs.
“We used social media as a tool and we just put out that we were looking to help out the folks in the shelters and that we were trying to collect 500 pairs of socks,” he said.
Radabaugh said he made a commitment to match whatever was donated by the community. He said socks were coming in from all over, including some shipped to him from five other states. He said it was heartwarming and humbling to see so many people help with the cause.
“It showed me how our community pulls together and helps people who need help,” he said.
After the goal was set, Radabaugh reached out to organizations he donated to. Radabaugh and his staff donated 802 pairs of socks, 75 hats and 60 pairs of gloves to Milan Puskar Health Right, the Union Mission in Fairmont and excess socks are going to Pantry Plus, which helps children in need.
“We quickly realized that we were going to collect more socks than the facilities we initially talked with would need,” he said.
Radabaugh said it wasn’t an initial thought to continue the effort of collecting socks in the future, but it will absolutely continue. After seeing the overwhelming response and after visiting the facilities where they delivered the socks and seeing the need and smiles from people who work there and people receiving socks, he said it will undoubtedly be an annual project.
Radabaugh said he feels incredibly grateful to be a part the community and also part of Allstate, which empowers its employees to positively impact the community. This year alone, his agency participated in three other volunteer projects in which Allstate Foundation issued grants to organizations.
“Through volunteer efforts that we’ve done locally, we get to see the impact that those things make. I have the privilege of representing a company that stands behind that and supports that,” he said.
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