January 12th is National Youth Day—a day set aside to celebrate the potential of the rising generation to shape and define our future. 🧒🌞🥰

While the day was first declared in India to honor the passing of leader and child advocate Swami Vivekananda, the practice of setting aside a day to honor our youth has since been adopted across many countries throughout the world. 🌏

Supporting kids through physical activity

As two soccer moms, we love our kids and believe in the importance of regular activity and play in helping youth grow into their best selves. ⚽️ 🥅

And we’re not alone! According to the CDC, regular physical activity not only supports improved physical health—such as strong bones and cardiorespiratory health—but reduces the symptoms of anxiety and depression and has even been shown to improve cognitive function and grades! 🧑‍🎓❤️🙌

Unfortunately, only 1 in 3 children is physically active each day, and only 3% of schools can afford a daily P.E. program. 💔 

The Let Them Play Foundation is doing something about it!

Sockprints spotlight: The Let Them Play Foundation

Photo Source: Let Them Play Foundation

Let Them Play is addressing this issue by funding youth activity programs that encourage kids to get active and be healthy! ⛹️‍♀️🤾‍♂️🏊‍♀️

The foundation began as a family quest, when founders Eric and Tarah Byrnes provided funding to a local little league team, covering the cost of equipment for an at-risk junior umpire program. The more involved they became, the more they realized the need many of these youth programs had for funding, and just how many children were unable to participate in sports due to lack of resources. 

Within their first year, the Let Them Play foundation fulfilled 30 program grants, and has only grown since then. Today, they support both local and national organizations across the country that empower healthy, active youth across sports and activities. Tarah Byrnes, co-founder of Let Them Play, shares:

“Often at events, we get the chance to have a ‘chant’ with the kids. Simple as it gets: Let Them Play!

We love to focus on the multiple sports we get to be a part of. We’ve given grants for everything from ballet, boxing, tennis, baseball, swimming, triathlon, and running to outdoor education, adaptive sports, soccer, basketball, hockey, la crosse, cheer, and more.” 

Supporting Youth Through Let Them Play

While today is National Youth Day, Sockprints celebrates youth all year long by donating to the Let Them Play foundation. 🏌️‍♀️

Our sports socks collections not only provide the perfect comfortable and durable socks to ensure your star athlete has her footing, but they’re custom designed for a number of different sports—including golf, baseball and softball, football, volleyball, soccer (of course!), and even fencing. 

And while we don’t have a collection of sports as extensive as those supported by Let Them Play—we’re catching up (just have to figure out what “swimming” socks would actually look like…🤔)!

So grab your socks, get outside, and en garde! 🤺