You will never see Mo Habib without a pair of wacky socks on his feet. His favourite pair? Sharks with lasers, and he designed them. Habib and his wife started Mr. Nice Socks in 2016 as a charitable passion project.
“We started calling organizations to see what they needed,” says Habib. “We were just going to donate sweaters and whatever else, but what we found out is socks are the number one most requested item in shelters and organizations.”
Habib designed four pairs of socks in December 2016 and sold them. For every pair of socks purchased, he donated two pairs to a charitable organization. The plan was short-term, and Habib intended to stop after Christmas, but the initiative was well received.
Companies started reaching out to Mr. Nice Socks for customized socks for corporate gifts and events. The buyer then got to decide which organization the donated socks went to. Since then, Mr. Nice Socks has donated about 90,000 pairs of socks to organizations across Canada and the United States including The Mustard Seed, Hull Services in Calgary and Home Start in San Diego.
“At the end of the day, what we found is everybody wants to do something good, but they need to have a medium to do it,” says Habib. “Our goal is to have our page eventually be a directory of organizations that people can reach out to, and get involved with because there’s just so many and right now they all need help.”
Shop Mr. Nice Socks at mrms.ca
This article appears in the May 2022 issue of Edify
This content was produced to support the Edmonton Made community. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Edify staff.
