“Why do foster kids always show up with stuffed animals, but no one can find them socks?”

Blair Michaela Shanahan Lane didn’t have a problem with teddy bears. Blair’s problem was babies with cold, bare feet. Each time a new foster child was given to her family’s care, Blair, 11, asked the same question.

That was Blair. Pragmatic. Compassionate. And determined to fix the problem.

Her solution was Foster Socks, a program dedicated to providing socks to foster and homeless children that she hoped to launch as part of her Girl Scout Gold Award project. While most girls complete their Gold Award projects as juniors or seniors in high school, Blair had a different sense of urgency. Though not yet a sixth grader at Nativity of Mary School in Independence, she was already filling journals with ideas and project plans for Foster Socks.