VALDOSTA – Inhabitants at the Lowndes Associated Ministries to People shelter will stay a little warmer this Christmas thanks to the Georgia Cotton Commission donation of 420 socks to the facility.

On behalf of the 3,500 cotton farming families across the state, the GCC recently donated 12,000 pairs of socks to various homeless shelters across the state.

Taylor Sills, executive director of the GCC, and Justin Shealey, Adel cotton farmer, personally delivered them to Yurshema Flanders, LAMP executive director.

Sills said the commission started the project four years ago when coming up with ways for cotton farmers to give back to the community and more than 48,000 socks have been delivered to homeless shelters across the state, with LAMP receiving approximately 1,200 socks since its inception.

“And the reason we got into this is one of our board members of the commission had been really passionate about finding a way for the cotton industry to give back to the local community and I came up with this idea through those Bombas ads that you hear about ‘buy a pair of socks, they donate a pair of socks,’” he said.

“The commission did some investigation and found a way to get a mass quantity of socks.

We take them and split them up and take them all over to the state, especially because they’re usually the top requested item at these shelters and a lot of them are produced with cotton.”

In a statement from GCC representatives, the commission encourages anyone who feels led to give this holiday season to contact a local homeless shelter for more donations.

For more information about the Georgia Cotton Commission, call (478) 988-4235 or visit www.georgiacottoncommission.org.