There’s a phrase we come back to a lot at The Icenhower Group. It’s not a tagline we invented in a conference room. It’s something that just kept surfacing as the truest way to describe what we actually do.
We help people move forward.
We help buyers take the leap into homeownership, sometimes for the first time, sometimes after years of wondering if it would ever happen for them. We help sellers close one chapter and step into the next. We help families relocating across the state figure out where they belong. We help agents build real careers — not just a license, but a livelihood and a community.
The circumstances are different for every person who calls us. But the thread running through every single one of those conversations is the same: someone standing at a transition point, needing a guide, needing clarity, needing someone who will walk the path with them.
That’s what we do. And this October, we found a partner who does the same thing – just along a very different path.
How This Started
Salt + Light is a Visalia-based nonprofit working every day with people experiencing homelessness in the Central Valley. Over the years, we have learned more about what Salt + Light actually does and how they do it.
And somewhere in those conversations, something was said that stuck with us. When Salt + Light talked about what people experiencing homelessness need most – the practical, immediate, on-the-ground kind of need- one item kept coming up. Not food, not shelter, not clothing in the broad sense. Socks. New socks. One of the most consistently needed and least donated items for people living without stable housing.
It’s the kind of detail that’s so simple it almost feels wrong. Something so ordinary. Something most of us grab off a rack without a second thought. And yet for someone who has lost access to the basics, a clean pair of socks is not a small thing. It’s warmth. It’s dignity. It’s something that says someone thought of you.
We decided to do something about it. That’s how Socktober was born.
Who Salt + Light Is
If you’ve heard the name but don’t know the full story, it’s worth knowing. Salt + Light is not a traditional shelter.
They built something called the Neighborhood Village in Visalia — a place designed around the idea that belonging is as essential to recovery as a roof. People don’t just get placed somewhere. They become neighbors. They have community. They have support that follows them toward stability rather than dropping off at the door.The results of that approach are hard to argue with.
That 98% housing retention rate is the number that changes the conversation every time it comes up. Nationally, outcomes for formerly unhoused individuals returning to homelessness are discouraging. Salt + Light’s model, treating people as neighbors rather than cases, building genuine community rather than temporary placement, produces a result that almost nobody else is getting.
They have housed more than 234 people in Tulare County. Of those, only a handful have returned to homelessness. That is what it looks like when an organization gets it right.
Through their Everyone Eats Today program, they deliver more than 800 meals every week to people living on the streets of the Central Valley. They have mobilized over 1,600 volunteers from this community. They have taken on one of the hardest challenges any organization can face, the intersection of housing, dignity, and belonging, and they are winning it quietly, consistently, and without a lot of fanfare.
Different circumstances. Same heart: meeting people where they are and helping them take the next step.
That’s the line that made this partnership feel obvious. Salt + Light helps people move forward through a very different kind of transition — from homelessness toward stability, from isolation toward belonging, from surviving toward something that actually looks like a life. The circumstances are as different as they could be from what we do every day. But the heart of it is the same.
What We’re Asking For This October
The Socktober sock drive runs now through October 31st. New socks — any size, any style. That’s it. No specific brand, no minimum quantity, no complicated process.
There are a few ways to participate, and we’ve tried to make every one of them easy:
Drop them off at our office. Bring new socks to The Icenhower Group anytime during business hours through the end of October. We’ll get them to Salt + Light. (1148 N. Chinowth Suite A, Visalia – 8-5pm, M-F)
Have an agent pick them up. If you’d rather we come to you, reach out and we’ll arrange it. No trip required. If you are already connected to an agent on our team – reach out to them directly!
Order online and ship direct. Use our Amazon Wishlist link to sends donations straight to the Salt + Light facility. You can participate without leaving your house. Click here to shop today!
We are so grateful & excited about this. It reflects something we actually believe about what it means to be part of a community — that you show up for the people in it, especially the ones having the hardest time.
Thank you for being here, and thank you in advance for showing up the way you always do.
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To drop off socks, arrange a pickup, or get the Amazon donation link, contact The Icenhower Group at 559.931.0355 or [email protected]. To learn more about Salt + Light and the work they do in Visalia and the Central Valley, visit saltandlightworks.org. or follow them on social media for more volunteer opportunities!