There comes a point in all of our lives where we are bewildered, dwarfed and even frightened by the magnitude of the world around us. For most, this experience inhibits us from realizing how simple making a difference can be. On February 5th in Spaulding Auditorium, Mike Smith eradicated that fear from all of the Laguna Blanca Upper School student body and faculty and replaced it with passion with his heart-warming, inspiring speech on how he began helping the homeless in his hometown.
Smith grew up in the small town of Imperial, Nebraska (2,091 people). In his senior year of high school, he told his basketball coach that he wanted to make a difference and help people. His coach showed him a bridge with dozens of homeless people shivering below in the winter weather. The next day, Smith woke up and skateboarded to the bridge with food and water. Although they had appreciated the meal greatly, they asked him for one more thing—socks. Imagine having to wear the same socks every day and night for weeks or even months without being able to shower.
This is part of life for hundreds of thousands of homeless Americans. Due to Smith’s message and the prevalence of homelessness in Santa Barbara, Ashley Tidey, as well as her daughters Aura ‘18 and Frances ‘22, and Laguna lifers John Puzder ‘16, Chandler Aubery ‘16 and Pierce O’Donnell ‘16 placed a cardboard box in the Isham Library that read “socks.”
After just four days, they had collected over 100 pairs of socks and the box was nearly overflowing. With the help of underclassmen Clara Hillis ‘17, Zoe Levy ’17, and Rose Houglet ’18, the group implemented a Middle School drive overseen by Andra Wilson and Landon Neustadt and eventually an EK-4 drive as well supervised by Lower School Head Andy Surber and Assistant Lower School Head Darla McDavid. “The high schoolers were jazzed after Mike Smith’s speech. I had never felt anything like [his speech] in that auditorium. They really wanted to include the younger kids in the Middle School and Lower School. It was a challenge to do anything EK-12, but we started looking at this as a small step for our big community that can help make a difference,” Tidey said in regard to expanding the drive. The drives were so popular that the end date had to be pushed back twice, as the boxes kept filling up more and more each day.
Eventually, Ashley Tidey had to reach out to her good friend Mimi Doohan of Common Ground to discuss distributing the socks. “Interestingly, some of those kids in the auditorium for the Mike Smith talk had literally just come back—a coincidence of weird timing—from the 5 a.m. Common Ground Vulnerability Survey and homeless count. It just felt important to do something to tap into the energy of that moment. We knew that what we would do would be small at first, but it would be something, a start. Now we have to figure out as a team what we are going to do with the socks and Dr. Mimi and Stephen Gruver from Common Ground are excited to help us,” Tidey explained. The group and Common Ground are still working out the logistics of the distribution process, but they will likely be giving out the socks within the next couple of weeks barring any unforeseen circumstances. The students have also expressed interest and enthusiasm in having other drives in the future, but no dates or details have been finalized thus far.