PHILANTHROPY
Winter Boots for the Homeless
I've volunteered with a Street Medicine Program called Operation Safety Net (OSN) and served on the Board of Directors for the Street Medicine Institute (SMI), both founded by Dr. Jim Withers in Pittsburgh. In 2012, inspired by Dr. Withers, I decided to buy 75 pairs of quality winter boots for the homeless population served by the OSN Street Medicine volunteer practitioners. These are pragmatic solutions that function as a powerful token of trust between the homeless individuals and those who go out into the streets, under bridges, down alleys, and behind dumpsters to find those most in need of a human connection and help accessing health care and social work services that match their unique individual situation. Since 2012, almost every year I've gotten a large shipment of Winter Boots, the number of boots needed and acquired has grown. The last few years I've been able to procure over 300 pairs of boots for men and women, with a shipment already sent consisting of 331 pairs of boots for Winter 2025-2026!
Over the years, I have been grateful to have people help with the details and even donations of funds to help offset the costs of this project. I'm really not very good with asking for donations and I am not the most organized to be able to purchase and coordinate everything early to have boots available for winter reliably, yet it's become a bit of a personal annual project of mine. Every year when I think I just can't afford it, I end up doing it anyway and thankfully God makes it work out well in the end. The McMurray Rotary Club and Peace Lutheran Church in McMurray, Pennsylvania have helped many of the years when funds were tight and help thought scarce. But to get the project started, it always requires me to just pay for the boots and presume that if there are no donors or not enough funds available from interested parties, then I plan to pay off the credit card debt with my tax refund in late spring.
I didn't succeed with making the right connections this year, but I still hold out hope to make the project's relevance apparent to the right partners in order to make it an annual and sustainable endeavor. I think it can be reduplicated in other parts of the nation and world with the right partners, perhaps local Rotary Clubs. So far I haven't been able to get a partnership program organized that could be copied broader. If you have an interest in such work, reach out and contact me!
RELEVANT LINKS
- Operation Safety Net Street Medicine Program (Pittsburgh, PA)
- Street Medicine Institute (Organization for Street Medicine Programs)
- McMurray Rotary Club (McMurray, PA)
- Rotary International (International global network of more than 1.2 million members)
- Peace Lutheran Church (McMurray, PA) The English District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
ShelterBox USA
In the past, I was a member of the McMurray Rotary Club, but changed jobs, so my attendance and participation had to be curtailed, I ended my membership. I remain in contact with my Rotary friends in my community however. While I was a member, one of my roles was serving as an ambassador for ShelterBox USA. This is a great philanthropy that provides emergency shelter to people who are displaced. The ShelterBoxes are delivered around the world by volunteer teams trained to respond rapidly to disasters. It was a Rotary International partnership program while I was in Rotary, and to me it was highly successful, well run and well organized. Donors get an ID for the ShelterBox they help to provide and when it is deployed they can track their box and see where they have helped!
RELEVANT LINK
- ShelterBox USA Emergency Disaster Relief