Congratulations to Adina Lichtman and Knock Knock Give a Sock, NextGen Innovation Award Winners

Congratulations to Knock Knock Give a Sock and its founder, Adina Lichtman, winners of the third NextGen Innovation Award! 

Knock Knock Give a Sock (KKGS) aims to humanize homelessness "one sock at a time" by turning transactions of sock donations into meaningful interactions where neighbors can get to know one another.  

During her sophomore year at NYU, Adina organized an event at the Hillel where students made sandwiches for a local homeless shelter. As they gave the sandwiches to the shelter residents, one pulled Adina aside to thank her for the sandwiches and let her know that what they really needed was socks.  

That brief exchange helped Adina realize that often we assume we know what others need without even asking them. She stopped and asked herself, "who are we really helping if we're not asking how we can help?" 

She formulated two goals: to collect and distribute socks and to help housed neighbors and unhoused neighbors get to know each other. 

After graduating with her Master in Social Work in 2017, Adina made KKGS her full-time endeavor. She works with corporations all over the US and Canada to run sock drives in partnership with a shelter in their local community and then coordinates "Meet Your Neighbor" events where the people who donated the socks can get to know their neighbors living at the shelter.  

To date, KKGS has distributed more than a million pairs of socks and hosted 75 "Meet Your Neighbor" events. The organization also hires New Yorkers living in shelters to distribute socks around the city through their "Sock-cess Job Program." 

The organization envisions a world where individuals of all socio-economic backgrounds share, listen, and ultimately know their neighbors, leading to stronger communities. 

When the pandemic hit, the "Meet Your Neighbor" events needed to be suspended but Adina found a new way to help different communities get to know each other and share their stories: she wrote and published two children's books! 

Knock Knock Give a Sock is the story of a young girl who learns that her neighbor living on the street needs a pair of socks. Knock Knock Where's My Sock shares the story of a young girl who is transitioning into a family shelter. The pair of books is available for purchase now and aims to humanize homelessness for those living in homes and teach all children that everyone can make a difference regardless of where they live.  

Adina plans to use the $5,000 award to pay for the book illustrations. We are very proud to play a role in this endeavor.  

"The NextGen Innovation Award was launched to help young professionals bring their creative ideas around homelessness to fruition,” explained NCS CEO Ann Shalof.” Knock Knock Give a Sock and Ms. Lichtman are exactly the kind of winners we envisioned, and we are excited to help support the Pair of Books project. We share their mission of destigmatizing homelessness by helping neighbors get to better know each other." 

“With the NCS grant, we will finally be able to achieve our mission of humanizing homelessness during a time when we can't bring our neighbors together,” Adina shared. “This grant allows us to share our neighbors’ stories through these impactful books! I am honored to have been chosen by NCS for this grant, and can't wait to see the impact that these books will have on children changing the world.” 

Congratulations to Adina and everyone at Knock Knock Give a Sock!