BATAVIA, Ohio — Members of the Aktion Club of Clermont County collected about 500 pairs of socks over the past month for a national charity drive that supplies clothing to local children and teens in need, according to a Facebook post from the Clermont County Board of Developmental Disabilities.
The club gathered the donations for Socktober, a month-long sock drive held each October by Give Like a Mother, a Cincinnati-based nonprofit that provides clothing and other essentials to children and teens facing financial hardship. Every pair collected goes directly into the organization’s “PACKs,” which are assembled to make sure kids have new socks for school, the nonprofit says.
“Talk about stepping up,” the board said in a post announcing the results, thanking Aktion Club members and everyone who donated to “help keep our community warm one pair of socks at a time.”
The Aktion Club of Clermont County is a self-advocacy and service group for adults with developmental disabilities that operates in partnership with the Clermont County Board of Developmental Disabilities and the Kiwanis Club of the East Fork Region. It is a chartered Aktion Club, a Service Leadership Program of Kiwanis International that describes itself as the only service club in the world built specifically for adults with disabilities, with more than 12,000 members internationally.
The Clermont County group traces its roots to 2017, when it formed as Clermont County Voices. It was renamed Clermont County Turn Up the Voices the following year, shortened to Turn Up Clermont in December 2019, and rechartered as the Aktion Club of Clermont County on March 16, 2022. Members meet monthly and take on service projects for community organizations in addition to advocating for the rights of people with disabilities.
The Clermont County Board of Developmental Disabilities provides services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities from early intervention through adulthood, including education through its Thomas A. Wildey School and behavioral health and service-coordination programs, according to the board.
The information contained in this story was obtained from the Clermont County Board of Developmental Disabilities.