It’s an automatic part of daily life for many people: when you get dressed, you put your socks on. Clean, dry socks make the feet feel good. Putting socks on is so routine many folks do that without even thinking about it.

Unfortunately, there are children in the Fort Dodge community who don’t get to put on a good pair of socks every day. Family financial problems mean that they don’t have enough socks or the ones they have are pretty threadbare.

To make sure that as many kids as possible go back to school this year with good socks on their feet, the Community Health Center of Fort Dodge and Shimkat Motor Co. are once again holding the Socks for the Sole campaign. This will be the 12th time they have teamed up for the effort.

It works like this: Shimkat Motor Co. collects donations of new socks and money with which to buy socks. The dealership buys and donates a pair of socks for every pair that gets dropped off at its showroom.

Shimkat Motor Co. also takes the donated money, buys socks with it, and then purchases more socks to match every pair purchased with the donated money.

In 2019, the biggest year for sock donations so far, the donated socks filled a new Jeep in the showroom and were falling out of the vehicle onto the floor. We have no idea how many socks it takes to fill a new Jeep, but we’re guessing it is a huge number.

TJ Pingel, the general manager of the dealership, said thousands of pairs of socks have been collected in the first 11 years of the campaign.

Donations will be accepted at the dealership, 2126 Fifth Ave. S. through Aug. 1.

The staff of the Community Health Center then gets the socks ready to be distributed. They will be handed out during a Back to School Block Party scheduled for Aug. 9 in the parking lot behind the Health Center.

We think it is a great thing that the Community Health Center and Shimkat Motor Co. have a sock campaign. There are always important efforts to get coats and school supplies to kids who need them, but before Socks for the Sole started few probably thought about the fact that those same kids need socks.

We encourage everyone to do their small part to make Socks for the Sole a big success this year. Let’s try to fill another vehicle or two with new socks for kids who need them.