I’m going to share the story of a company doing great, faith-filled work because to the founders it’s the right thing to do.
The company: Bombas Socks. What do they do? Create and Sell Socks. No big deal, right? Well, here’s their story.
David Heath and Randy Goldberg were IT co-workers for a lifestyle website in New York City. They both liked their jobs okay but wanted to do something different. They talked of starting their own company but didn’t really know exactly what they wanted to do.
While looking for ideas and options, Mr. Heath read a Facebook article on homelessness that revealed a piece of not-well-known information. The most requested item at homeless shelters is SOCKS. Shelters do not accept or distribute used socks and by comparison, new sock donations are very few. The average sock, athletic or otherwise, doesn’t wear very long. So there is a shortage of socks – especially good quality socks.
In 2013, the friends left their well-paying jobs to become part of the solution. Here’s what they say on their website:
So we started to think about ways in which we could help solve this problem. We initially thought about buying and donating socks, but we felt like that wasn’t enough, the problem was much bigger than that. We wanted to create something scalable. The solution? A company that donates a pair of socks for every pair sold. The more socks we sell, the more we can donate. And how do you sell a lot of socks? Design something better than anything on the market… Bombas was born out of a mission to help those in need. We’re committed to making our community where we live and work a better place with every pair of socks we sell.
For every pair of socks purchased, Bombas donates a pair of specially designed socks for the homeless to area shelters as well as through an Ohio based program “Hannah’s Socks”. They adapted this business model from “Tom’s”, a Los Angeles shoemaker. There are more companies organizing themselves around this type of ‘altruistic’ business model.
They may not make the Billions that other companies and their executives make, I don’t know. But they sure seem to know what it means to have Enough and what it means to give from our Abundance.
They now sell over 900,000 socks a year = 900,000 socks give to those in need.
Isn’t that living the Gospel?
Matthew 25: Feed the hungry, cloth the naked, house the homeless…
Grace & Peace,
Pastor Chellie
John Street United Methodist Church 