As the gates opened and I drove down to her home, it finally dawned on me why I felt uneasy. As a guy trying to make a living in the business of giving, I truly had nothing to give The Big Bang Theory star Kaley Cuoco.
If you know anything about Sock Problems, you know we’re a bootstrapped start-up with an ambitious goal of “socking” the world’s most pressing issues with socks. Each sock in our line gives no less than 25% of revenue back to our expert charity partners and that doesn’t leave much excess for celebrity endorsements.
Meeting with a celebrity could make many people jittery. So as I think back to the first few seconds of meeting Kaley it wasn’t long before those jitters were put at ease. If there’s one thing you should know about Kaley, it’s that she’s not trying to be anything but herself. It was clear she wasn’t looking for compensation, the spotlight or notoriety. She was only looking to help.
Kaley was instantly real, absurdly approachable, and, most of all, good. I had nothing to worry about.
This was reinforced when I reached her backyard and saw that she had transformed her home into a Paw Works shoot. More so, she was tending to a handful of lovable, adoptable puppies who were getting ready for their 15 minutes on camera and loving every minute.
Sock Problems was first introduced to Kaley through my hilarious friend Jamie Greenberg who happens to be Kaley’s make-up artist. I’ve always joked that Jamie knows how to make laugh lines for her Hollywood clients and then has the cosmetic expertise to make them fade away! Jamie thought Kaley might be up for designing a sock with us since she works relentlessly to keep animals out of euthanized kill zones.
As I shared a few of our past designs for other causes, it was clear that Kaley and, style guru Brad Goreski (Kaley’s entertaining co-host on this particular Paw Works shoot) were into our give back concept. In a matter of moments, we decided it would be fun to design a sock together that would get the word out on the cause, while also sending proceeds back to Paw Works. And better, why not have Kaley’s rescue pit bull named Norman be the inspiration?
Fast forward a few months later, we now have our limited edition ‘Adopt. Don’t Shop.’ socks. You’ll be pleased to learn we give targeted cash back to Paw Works (and all of our partners) on every purchase; which is much more meaningful than most ‘give one, get one’ models.
Kaley said of working with us, “Sock Problems was awesome in letting us be part of the fun and design.” To counter, I’d like to say that Kaley and Brad were awesome in letting us into their lives. I don’t know of a lot of celebrities who would warmly welcome another into their home the way they did. Working with Kaley, Brad, Jamie and Paw Works has allowed us to create a sock that we think all animal lovers can rally behind and be proud to own.
After all, #OurSocksDoMore.
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Ryan Berman is the founder of Sock Problems: an altruistic sock company that “socks” problems in the world. He is the author of the soon-to-released book, Return on Courage.
