Made in Arizona: Voyce Threads
PHOENIX - Across Arizona, nonprofit groups are making a difference in our communities and one man created a business to tell their stories — on pairs of socks. Voyce Threads wants to help you start meaningful conversations by showing off what's on your street.
Billboard ads are everywhere. But nonprofits are using people's feet. Mismatched socks — with meaning.
Drew Shaw is the founder of Voyce Threads in Phoenix. The company launched in November of 2018. The main goal is to spark positive conversation about the groups who give back to our community.
"We partner up with nonprofits and charitable organizations and we use their work as the design inspiration for our socks," Shaw said. "I go and meet with the representative, I talk about their story or they tell me their story [and] we tour their facility. I look at their marketing materials, their websites [and] I troll their social media, and then I take all of that information and I go and talk to my lead designer."
The sock patterns are sketched and designed here before being sent to production.A pair will cost you $16 and up to 10 percent of that purchase goes back to the respective nonprofit. For example: The Arizona Humane Society, Teach for America Phoenix, Arizona Apparel Foundation, Million Dollar Teacher Project, and more.
"I think they find it really valuable because their name and their brand is getting in front of people who [have] probably never heard about them," Shaw said. "And probably never would have otherwise."
Shaw believes people are inherently generous but don't always know how to give back. Stepping up your sock game seems like a win-win. Starting a conversation — with style.
"It's not just us selling socks, we're really telling their story and we're really pointing people to those nonprofits because I believe that people are inherently generous and we don't often know the mechanisms to be generous or we feel like we don't have enough time or enough money," Shaw explained. "And this is a really easy way to get involved in your community."
Voyce Threads
https://voycethreads.com/