8-year-old girl distributes thousands of socks, blankets to homeless in annual donation drive

COVINA, Calif. (KABC) -- This is the story of a little girl with a very big heart.

Meet 8-year-old Maya Aguilar of Covina. For the past three years, she's been collecting socks and blankets to help keep many of the homeless population warm, especially over the holidays.

"This started when my wife rather my lovely wife and my daughter happened to see a homeless person on the side of the freeway holding a sign," Carlos Aquilar said. "My daughter had some recycling money on her at the time and she wanted to donate it to the homeless person. But rather than make a one-time donation, my wife and my daughter thought up a way that they may be able to something more regularly."

And that's when The Cozy Collection was born.

"They need that stuff to stay warm because around winter it can get really cold and it's around Thanksgiving, too," Maya Aquilar said. "So you have to give thanks for what they got, they got socks."

Ontario's Mercy House was the recipient of more than 7,000 pairs of brand new socks this week.

"It means incredible warmth for people that are really hurting," said Judy Conner of Mercy House. "People don't ever think about feet but when you're having to walk on your feet all the time in shoes that don't fit with holes and then you have wet feet, just imagine how it must feel to you."

Maya is a third grader at Condit Elementary School in Claremont. Her little brother Joaquin is helping out, too.

And when it comes to being thankful this Thanksgiving, a lot of people have Maya to be thankful for.

It "warms my heart that a little child gets it," Connor said. "A little girl gets it when so many other people don't."

If you'd like to help out with next years donation, check out The Cozy Collection's Facebook page.