During the winter months, New Orleans’ homeless shelters expand their services to allow as many people as possible to have a safe place to sleep for the night. Our own sponsored shelters, the Ozanam Inn and New Orleans Mission, work very hard to serve an increased number of needy individuals.

Both shelters offer a good meal, a shower, and a clean bed for those who need them. As such, they are always in need of personal hygiene items, dining utensils, and bedding supplies to replenish their constantly depleting stock. Therefore, we are conducting a supply drive to supplement their resources, particularly as we enter the cooler part of the year.

Items that we are seeking include:

Personal Hygiene Items: shampoo, conditioner, bars of soap, lotion*, antibacterial hand soap, shaving cream (NO RAZORS), baby powder (mainly the first four)

*We have been told that lotion is desperately needed, as weather does considerable damage to constantly-exposed skin.

Eating Utensils: paper plates, plastic forks, spoons, (NO KNIVES), napkins, paper towels, 8oz cups, 12 oz cups, and plastic bowls

Bedding and Linens: new or gently-used hand towels, bath towels, twin-sized fitted sheets, twin-sized top sheets

Personal Items: NEW underwear for men and women (especially L, XL, and XXL), and new or gently-used bras for women (especially in the D-cup sizes)

This is in order of necessity, by the way, so if you want to concentrate your efforts, please focus on the top two categories.

If everyone brings one bag of materials, we’ll have a fantastic supply drive. You can deposit all donations in either of the two giant boxes in the Medical Education Building lobby, at 1901 Perdido St.

You can also stop by our table-sit in the MEB atrium (on the third floor) during the week of Nov 16-20 to either ask our volunteers about the drive, or to donate money for purchasing supplies.

Also: if you don’t feel like going out and buying stuff, feel free to give us monetary donations (checks made out to the “LSU Foundation”) and deposit them in Veronique Haymon’s NTS folder, also in the first floor lobby.

If you have questions, please direct them to Angela or Alicia Pressley.

Thank you all for keeping the vision of the clinics alive!

All I will say is: things are moving forward. I know that you’ve heard this phrase repeatedly for the past year or so, but I promise that this is the truth. Keep sending positive energy to the cause, and let’s hope we hear good news sooner rather than later. January start-up still looks imminent! That’s all I can say for now…

The last few weeks have been a blur of climbing out of post-exam funk, assigning volunteers to St. Anna’s dates (see sidebar for upcoming opportunities!), figuring out a couple of questions having to do with the Office of Public Health’s STD testing protocols, and generally assessing what is needed in the months to come. The executive officers had a meeting on November 3rd to confirm the details on our upcoming training session (week of January 11th, date TBA) and Supply Drive (see next entry). Just so you know, we are intending to re-open the clinics in January. Due to this fact, we have a lot to do between now and then, not the least of which entails cleaning out our storage closets at the Ozanam Inn and New Orleans Mission. Stay tuned for a plea of help! We will need as many of you as we can find to assist in tidying up our rooms and throwing out expired materials. Rest assured that we have most of our clinic supplies ready to go for start-up, but we have to make sure all of the old stuff is out of the way. Regardless, we’re excited to finally get to do this!

This day was an exciting one for those of us who have been working so hard on making sure that the clinics reopen! The first bit of awesomeness was that we received news of a generous donation from an anonymous source. This is exciting, because once the clinics are running again, we will certainly have the means to expand our services, such as expanding STD testing, increasing our capacity for mental health screening, and broadening the pharmaceutical resources available to our patients. The nature of our clinic operations means that we rely completely on donations to function. Therefore, anything we receive is wholeheartedly appreciated (and needed)!

The second bit of awesome news we received was that the attorneys are actively working on the MOU’s. This is great to hear, indeed! Let’s keep our fingers crossed for a hasty (yet thorough) agreement composition!

After our new members were selected, it became crunch time for us exec board members. As we are all L2’s, we had our legendary block II exams on October 26th and 27th, so we ceased to do much in the way of the clinics during this crunch time. What I can tell you is…

As of October 13th, the requested documentation assembled by me and Melissa was sent to the necessary administrative members’ offices for the purposes of review and eventual draft of a Memorandum of Understanding. Remember, this is the necessary agreement that must exist between LSUHSC and the shelters, so that all operations and liabilities are accounted for.

As of October 20th, it was still being reviewed.

I sent out periodic requests for information during this time and was told that things were moving along as they should.

Now that our applications process is complete, we’d like to share with you our new additions to the homeless clinic teams.

New L2 Members* are:

Lena Al-dujaili, Brad Blasiar, Andrea Caballero, Louis Cannizzaro, Sophia Cenac, Rachel Coleman, Haley Davis, Lisa Deininger, Sarah Dendy, Stephanie El Hajj, Ross Gaudet, Kevin Gipson, Megan Hartman, Christian Hernandez, Amanda Messer, Harry Molligan, Anna Pasvantis, Shane Prejean, Jessica Shields, JW Steves, David Tadin

*Still in the process of deciding between adult and women’s clinic

New L1 Adult Clinic Volunteers:

Donnesha Clayton, Sean Field, Lori Hutcherson, Rayanne Lee, Jacques Levet, India Mayo, Eric Miller, Taylor Moss,
Ashley Stevens, Catherine Tridico with Kristin Clay and Annie Yeh as alternates

New L1 Women’s Clinic Volunteers:

Dara Davenport, Michelle Engelhorn, Karmynah Helaire, Kamilah Jackson, Sarah Kleinfeld, Chichi Obih, Ashley Matthews, Joyce Muruthi, Darlonda Reynaud, Laura Shoemaker with Tara Castellano and Laura Classen as alternates.

I want to emphasize just how awesome our applicants were this year. We worked very hard to make sure we fairly evaluated each and every application. Those whom we were unable to staff on our teams this year were still amazing, but the limitations of space and clinic days render it necessary to limit our volunteers. We earnestly encourage anyone who didn’t get a chance to serve this year to please re-apply next year. As you can see, a substantial number of L2’s are picked to fill the higher number of upperclassmen spots that are available in the clinics. Many, many thanks to all who applied.

Interviews were held to allow people to express themselves in person. We kept them short with eight questions that asked the applicant to demonstrate that they could be not only adaptable to different situations, but ultimately compassionate at the same time. All of our applicants were simply amazing! In fact, it was incredibly difficult to separate out those who would serve on the teams this year from those who would be alternates or for whom we did not have room. We always encourage those whom we are unable to staff this year to reapply next year, as we just don’t have enough spots available at this time. Also, we hope to expand our operations in the future to include other venues in which we can provide service to the community. Our goal is to help the homeless, and if we can give that opportunity to as many people as possible, then we shall do so.

Because there still seemed to be a lot of misinformation about the status of the clinics, it seemed like a good idea to hold a lunchtime meeting at which anyone could attend. The point of the meeting would be to explain what had happened with the clinics, as well as what we had been doing to bring them back. Furthermore, we wanted to explain what a normal clinic day actually was, because at this point, none of our first- and second-year students have served on one. I presented a short powerpoint with the history of the clinics, the eventual shut-down, what had happened since, and where we hoped to go. Students were allowed to ask any questions that they had, and our executive officers were introduced and recognized for all of the hard work that they have put into the project. Finally, we hoped to ensure that anyone who was applying did so with a well-versed knowledge of what had been happening. We also explained that we have a new advisor, Dr. Cathi Fontenot, (see below) and that she has done much to keep the process of writing an agreement with our shelters alive. The meeting was a great success, and I still thank the officers for helping to make it all happen!

During this time, we were in constant communication with our officers, trying to make sure that we had accurate contact information for all of the people on our rosters. As you can imagine, rallying together people who have been in a defunct organization can be a daunting task, but we have slowly contacted almost all of our existing members.

In order for the clinics to function properly, we need between 16-20 members present on a clinic day. They also have to be roughly representative of all four levels of medical students who work in the clinics, meaning that we have an abundance of upperclassmen to oversee the freshman students who participate. We also must ensure that our volunteer physicians, who run the clinic day, have the means to supervise us while we assist them. Therefore, September through October were our applications process.

We don’t like holding applications, honestly. However, because there are limited places to stand in the clinics, as well as the added issue of having continuity among volunteers (so that we can really come to know the shelters), AND because there are simply more people who want to participate than we have spots to accommodate them, they are necessary. We make it as objective as possible, blanking out names and assigning numbers to each application, with no less than three people separately evaluating the application at a time. Each application is scored, and those whose scores are above a certain number are interviewed. We try to be as generous as possible in making these decisions.

We sent out the applications to the entire student body. Most of those who replied were first year students, followed by second year students. It is a simple application that asks the applicant to explain why they are interested in the homeless clinics, and how they would contribute. Applications were able to be turned in between September 27th and October 9th.

Because we were essentially told that we were moving forward with operations in the near future, Melissa and I decided to start putting processes in motion. Therefore, our officers began going about the duties of making sure things were in order, while we began figuring out what things we actually needed once it was time to open the clinics again. I met with the Ozanam’s program director, Mr. diGiovanni, or “Mr. G” as he is known, at the Ozanam Inn on September 24th. In addition to this, Mr. Clarence Adams was present to give his perspectives, as he is the assistant administrator there. We discussed what they expected from the clinics, as well as what services they would like to see expanded. Mostly, we made sure that in the future, we would have adequate security and privacy for the patients, as well as ample room in which to work. Most significantly, they expressed an earnest wish to see the Saturday clinics restored. They repeatedly commented on the importance of our service to their population, as well as how necessary it is for the health of the Ozanam Inn itself. When we catch illnesses early, we prevent them from spreading throughout the shelter and to the staff. Kevin Gipson came along and took some beautiful pictures, which you can see throughout the site, and also recorded the sound bites that you will hear in our audio section. The overall theme of this meeting was: Mr. G and Mr. Adams were were happy with the services that the clinic provided, but just want to see them restored.

Melissa held a similar meeting with Mr. Lou Banfalvi at the New Orleans Mission. At this meeting she discovered that the Mission is no longer open on Saturdays. This is due to a current budget crunch that allows them only to let in people to sleep in the evenings. Therefore, in the future, our Women’s Clinic days will have to be held on a weekday, for a few hours in the morning. Fortunately, we have students and physicians willing to participate anyway.