’Tis the season – or at least, ’twill be soon, and a local women’s group is getting in the spirit now with its annual sock drive.

The Franklin County Women’s Leadership Committee, a division of Alabama Farmers Federation, is seeking donations for its yearly Cottons for Christmas collection. The group is collecting new socks that will be distributed to residents in one of the county’s nursing homes.

“Each year our committee picks a different nursing home in the county, and we strive to provide all residents in that particular nursing home a gift of socks and lotion,” explained committee member Shannon Murray. “We want to help our community, and the nursing home patients are a wonderful way to do this.”

Murray said the socks go to a different nursing home each year in rotation. This year’s beneficiary will be Burns Nursing Home in Russellville; the 2020 recipient was Generations of Red Bay.

Murray said diabetic socks and socks with grippers are especially requested, but all types of socks will be accepted. “We often receive multi-pair packs, and we open those up and distribute them among the patients equally as best we can,” Murray said. “We need both men’s and women’s socks.”

Collection boxes will be available at:

• The Franklin County Courthouse/Extension Office – leave donations with one of the courthouse security guards
• ALFA Insurance Office of Russellville
• ALFA Insurance Office of Red Bay

Murray said the group collected more than 200 pairs of socks this past, and the more the better.

“The number of patients in any given nursing home can fluctuate each year, and the amount we receive, we will divide up so that each patient receives two or more pairs each,” Murray explained. “Unfortunately, this might be the only gift some of our local residents receive, and we want to let them know we care about them.

“There aren’t many gifts they can receive in the nursing home,” she added. “Socks, along with bottles of lotion we provide, make a nice gift bag for each of them and hopefully lets them know how much they are loved.”

Donations will be accepted through Dec. 1.

Committee chairperson Carol Glass said this effort fits with the group’s focus on trying to “be a voice for the family farm and agriculture while we also strive to serve our community.”

For more information call Glass at 256-810-5446 or Murray at 256-668-3893.