Riley Caldow, Hannah Farhall and Amy Zuell are developing Socks of the West, where the students plan to manufacture and sell socks.

With every pair sold another will be donated. 

The idea came from the students’ participation in a care drive as part of the six-month leadership program, where they collected and donated 1500 pairs of socks and 160 care packages to services including the Soup Bus and Shower Bus. 

“We identified that socks were the most under donated item of clothing to people in need,” Amy said.

“So we ran a sock drive and made care packages… and then from there we’ve moved forward with socks because it’s a unique concept.

“We want to use our connections with the Bulldogs and the things that we learnt within the program to turn our project into a social enterprise.”

Riley said one of the most powerful aspects of the leadership program had been distributing the items and meeting the recipients.

“It felt good, you were giving back to people in need and the smiles on their faces, it was just great,” he said.

Hannah said completing the Western Bulldogs Leadership Program had helped her become a better person and she was keen to remain involved.

She and Amy travelled to Melbourne to speak with administration staff at the Western Bulldogs about their idea, returning to Ballarat with a grant that could fund the first run of socks.

The group hopes to have the social enterprise in action before the start of the 2018 AFL season. 

Other projects to come out of the Western Bulldog’s Ballarat-based program included sanitary items for women, mental health talks and an educational video on drugs and alcohol at music events.

This is the second year the Western Bulldogs have hosted the project in Ballarat, while also expanding further west to work with teenagers in Stawell and Hamilton.