#doDifferent and Help Save a Species with Socks
We all know that feeling of pulling on a genuinely great pair of socks - the ones with just the right amount of quirk, that make you smile every time you catch a flash of them under your jeans, that somehow become the ones you reach for first out of the drawer. Now imagine that same pair of socks is also helping fund the rescue and rehabilitation of one of South Africa's most beloved - and most endangered - seabirds. That's not a stretch. That's WaddleOn.
Enter WaddleOn by Marts, a small Cape Town sock brand with an oversized soft spot for penguins. They're not just making fun, funky socks - they're weaving conservation into every single pair, one waddle at a time.
Every good South African story starts with someone who cares a little too much about something most of us barely think about. For founder Martine Viljoen, that something was the African penguin.
Her journey began with an honours degree, hands-on fieldwork, and years of volunteering - first at SANCCOB from 2014, and at the Two Oceans Aquarium from 2010, where her dedication eventually earned her a spot as a casual penguin keeper in 2016. She went on to conduct penguin fieldwork on Robben Island and, in 2017, tackled a 130km trek from Gansbaai to Simonstown - aptly named Waddle 2017 - to raise awareness for the species she'd fallen in love with.
That passion didn't stay confined to the colonies. It found its way onto our feet. WaddleOn's first collection launched with four complementary pair designs, introducing the world to Rocky (who lives at SANCCOB) and Ms Harold (who calls the Two Oceans Aquarium home) - real penguins, immortalised in cotton, now joined by a growing wardrobe of wrap-around and heel-and-toe penguin designs.
But here's the part that makes WaddleOn more than just another cute animal-print sock brand: for every single pair sold, R3 goes directly to SANCCOB - the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds - to fund the rescue, hand-rearing, and release of injured and abandoned seabirds along our coastline. It's a small amount per pair, but it adds up fast. In just one year, WaddleOn helped channel roughly R50,000 towards SANCCOB's rehabilitation work - money that goes straight into things like hand-rearing abandoned chicks and rescuing stranded eggs.
African penguins are now critically endangered, with colony numbers along the South African coast dropping at an alarming rate. It's easy to feel like there's nothing an ordinary person can do about a crisis playing out on rocky beaches and offshore islands. WaddleOn's answer is refreshingly simple: wear something that funds the fight.
Martine hasn't stopped at socks, either. Alongside running WaddleOn, she's continued her hands-on conservation work as a SANCCOB volunteer and first responder, an I AM WATER Lead Coach, and now serves as Marine Wildlife Manager at the Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation - assisting researchers from SANCCOB, BirdLife South Africa, and the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment with fieldwork on islands like Robben Island, Dassen Island, and Lambert's Bay. WaddleOn, in her words, has simply given her "a unique and creative way to give back to conservation work close to my heart" - even on the days she isn't out in the field herself.
You can buy WaddleOn socks directly through the SANCCOB online store for R120 a pair, in adult sizing (UK 8-11 and UK 4-7) as well as a newer kids' range. They're also popping up on shelves in gift shops, aquariums, and curio stores right across the country - from SANCCOB's own centres in Cape Town and Gqeberha, to the Two Oceans Aquarium at the V&A Waterfront, the Curious Penguin Shop at Boulders Beach, Deer Design in Rosebank, Johannesburg, and stockists as far afield as the Drakensberg and the Free State - with more joining the list all the time.
By choosing a pair of WaddleOn socks - whether it's Rocky, Ms Harold, or one of the wrap-around designs - you're doing more than accessorising. You're putting a few extra rand into the hands of the people pulling oiled, injured, and orphaned seabirds back from the brink, one rescue at a time. It's a tiny, wearable act of conservation, hatched right here in Cape Town.
Together, let's choose differently. Let's buy things that make us smile on the outside and do genuine good on the inside. Because a world where a pair of socks can help save a species is exactly the kind of world worth waddling towards.
