HAY RIVER - A Hay River woman is closing in on the halfway mark of a unique, year-long personal project for charity.

Jessica Latour is making sock monkeys throughout 2011 - averaging one a day for a total of 365 - and donating them to various charitable causes.

"I wanted to personally challenge myself and give back," she said.

She said the experience has so far been very rewarding.

Latour hopes that each sock monkey will make a child happy.

For several days this month, 139 of her sock monkeys were on display at the Hay River Heritage Centre.

The first three months of sock monkeys - about 90 of the puppets - were shipped last week to victims of the forest fire which destroyed much of Slave Lake, Alta.

The next three months of sock monkeys will be donated in July to the annual motorcycle toy run between Hay River and Enterprise. That event collects toys and other items for Secret Santa, a project which helps needy families in the Hay River area at Christmas.

After that donation, more sock monkeys will go to various other charities which are yet to be determined.

Latour said she is breaking the traditional form of the sock monkey by using different colours, styles and textures, instead of just grey socks.

Each sock monkey takes about an hour or an hour and a half to make from a pair of socks.

All are given names

and birthdays by Latour, who is a family resource centre worker at Growing Together and is also a musician and singer.

Once the sock monkey project is complete at the end of the year, Latour plans to continue contributing to charity.

"After that, I'll do something else for sure," she said, adding she hasn't yet determined what that new project might be.

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