Community Corner

UConn Staff Help the Homeless for Thanksgiving

Join national effort to provide podiatry screenings and appropriate shoes to homeless for fifth year.

Once again this year, clinical staff from UConn's New England Musculoskeletal Institute will offer free foot screenings and new shoes for the less fortunate in central Connecticut.

It’s part of a Thanksgiving week effort to provide podiatry screenings and properly fitting footwear at homeless shelters across the country. The Pennsylvania nonprofit Our Hearts to Your Soles made this a national mission in 2007, and the UConn Health Center, led by Dr. Michael Aronow, has been involved at the local level each year since.

“I appreciate the enthusiasm and commitment that the participating New England Musculoskeletal Institute staff has shown for this project,” Aronow says. “They have more than willingly dedicated their off-duty time, skill, and compassion to help people who otherwise might not get what should be considered in this country as ‘routine foot care’ or appropriate shoe wear for the New England winter.”

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Now known as the Conti Project, this nationwide effort works in collaboration with the Tennessee nonprofits Soles4Souls and Socks2Soles, as well as retailers such as Red Wing Shoes and KEEN footwear, to obtain shoes and boots for distribution. Last year’s campaign helped more than 8,000 people in 32 locations throughout the U.S. This year’s will reach 38 cities in 33 states.

Today, Aronow and Dr. Vinayak Sathe, both foot and ankle surgeons, along with orthopedics resident Lauren Geaney, physician assistant Cindy Baczewski, and medical assistants Lori Engengrro and Doreen Smith, are volunteering in New Britain, at the Friendship Center, 241 Arch St., from about 5 to 6:30 p.m., and at the Salvation Army, 78 Franklin Square, from about 7 to 8 p.m.

Find out what's happening in Farmingtonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

This article by Chris DeFrancesco first appeared on UConn Today.


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