Resilience Gives is Going Toe-to-Toe with Cancer, One Pair of Socks at a Time

When 21-year-old Jake Teitelbaum was hospitalized for a stem cell transplant to eradicate his blood cancer, one detail stood out. “Each time you’re admitted to the hospital, you’re given those drab, poorly made hospital socks,” Teitelbaum says with a chuckle. As a college senior at Wake Forest University fighting a resistant form of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Teitelbaum’s transplant was his fifth hospitalization in five months, and so the socks were a familiar sight.

“During my previous infusions, my feet were always freezing! The thin hospital socks just weren’t doing it.”

So this time around, he brought his own pair. And it helped, big time.

“There was the practical side of having better socks in a cold hospital, but there was also a mental component - I brought my favorite pair, and they helped remind me that although I couldn’t change how my body would respond to the chemotherapy and fight the cancer, I could change how I experienced the fight. That was powerful.”

Teitelbaum’s stem cell transplant worked, and one year after beginning treatment, he transitioned to maintenance therapy. With a lighter chemo regimen, he began working on Resilience Gives. The idea was to create better quality non-slip socks with vibrant designs. He started working with pediatric cancer patients to create designs inspired by their journeys. First, Samaury, a Non-Hodgkins patient, co-designed The Samaury Carter socks, then Lilli, a leukemia patient who loved owls, co-designed the Lilli Owl. And now, four years later, the company has worked with 106 children from across the country to create uniquely meaningful designs while incorporating a philanthropic model of giving one pair to a child in the hospital for every pair sold. To date, they’ve donated over 6,600 socks and over $143,900 to cancer research and family support-focused non-profits.

After participating in two accelerator programs, MassChallenge in Boston, Massachusetts, and Winston Starts in North Carolina, the company recently hired Andrea Wallace as a co-owner. Wallace, who earned her PhD in bioengineering from MIT this past May, is excited about the new opportunity. “It’s definitely a far-cry from being at the lab bench,” she smiles, “and I think we have a special opportunity to innovate on a product that’s been overlooked while doing a lot of social good in the process.”

And innovate they have. Resilience Gives has introduced three new non-slip designs sporting anti-bacterial properties amongst other features not normally seen with non-slip socks. Their flagship style features a double layered construction with an outer layer of merino wool and an inner layer of aloe-infused feathered nylon. They’ve also added a lightweight design with jute fiber for those with warmer feet, and a relaxed fit line with merino wool for folks with wider feet.

More apparent than any feature, however, is the eye-catching designs. “Designing non-slip socks that patients actually want to wear is where we started, but we see non-slip socks as something everyone can benefit from,” says Teitelbaum. Each year, over 800,000 people are hospitalized due to slips and falls, and millions more are treated for fall injuries according to the Center for Disease Control. “The current situation is that the socks made to prevent falls are thin and not aiding our patients in preventative measures,” says Christin, a nurse practitioner at Brenner Children’s Hospital. “[Resilience Gives] socks are currently used on my hematology and oncology unit and I would like to expand their use if possible.”

True to the bold ideas of their co-designers who range in age from 3 to 13 and are in various stages of their own cancer journeys, the socks are sure to spark conversation whether you’re wearing them to prevent slipping on your hardwood floors or for an extended hospital stay.

About Resilience Gives:

Founded by a cancer patient frustrated with the ugly, poorly made hospital socks, Resilience Gives partners with children who are battling cancer to design fun, high-quality, non-slip socks inspired by their journeys. For every pair of socks sold, a pair is donated to a child in the hospital.

● Storytelling through Socks: Creating sock designs rooted in a family’s fight with cancer empowers families to use creativity to share their message of resilience and hope for families in the thick of treatment. It’s a small way of saying, “Hey, I’ve stood in your socks, and there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”

● Giving Back: We believe making and giving go hand in hand, and since working with our first family in 2016, we’ve now worked over over 100 children to create uniquely meaningful sock designs that have raised over $140,000 and have donated over 6,500 pairs of socks to children in hospitals across the country.

● Innovation in non-slip: Using custom fiber blends of such as merino wool and aloe-infused feathered nylon in combination with ultra grippy, phthalate-free non-slip bottoms, Resilience Gives delivers antimicrobial non-slip socks.

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