These Donations Were Made for Walking

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HCA staff shown sorting shoes at HCAD, are From left: Alejandra Gutierrez, Esther Aranda and Roma Estrada from HHSA’s Health Care Coverage Access are shown sorting footwear donated for clients of the Third Avenue Charitable Organization.

HCA staff shown sorting shoes at HCAD, are From left: Alejandra Gutierrez, Esther Aranda and Roma Estrada from HHSA’s Health Care Coverage Access are shown sorting footwear donated for clients of the Third Avenue Charitable Organization.

HHSA’s Health Coverage Access (HCA) staff oftentimes serve Medi-Cal and CalFresh customers in nontraditional venues, such as hospitals, jails, food banks and community based organizations.  HCA works with these entities to coordinate various outreach events.

One of these groups is the Third Avenue Charitable Organization (TACO) in downtown San Diego. TACO offers breakfast for homeless/low-income folks every Friday. HCA staff is on hand at TACO to offer and process CalFresh applications onsite.

The event offers other services, including having a selection of donated clothes and shoes available to clients. This gave the HCA employees the idea to create the “100 Shoe March” effort to gather donated footwear for TACO clients.

HCA staff began cleaning out their closets and soliciting donations from other HHSA Family Resource Centers and programs.

Soon the donations began rolling in. They had set a goal of gathering 100 pairs to donate by April 30. But the response was so overwhelming that they exceeded their goal and delivered over 100 pairs by April 13.