“We’re just selling socks and trying to do a good thing,” said Sam Harper, 27, co-founder of Hippy Feet, a company in Minneapolis that employs homeless youth. “We are not trying to advance any particular agenda around homelessness and unemployment.”
“We recognize that through no control of their own, some people will be born into circumstances where they have a support system and ample opportunity while others will not. We’re looking to empower a generation of young people who have been affected by homelessness and provide them a support system that may be missing from their lives.”
“Sometimes, social entrepreneurs, like any company founders, finetune their business model over time. In the case of Minneapolis-based Hippy Feet, it was the social mission that co-founders Michael Mader and Sam Harper readjusted a few years after starting the sock and apparel company in 2016.”