SF AHEC Scholars: Fashion for All - SF AHEC Scholars Volunteer with St. Anthony's Free Clothing Program!
On Saturday, October 4th, SFCCC’s Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Scholars volunteered with St. Anthony’s Free Clothing Program, San Francisco’s largest free clothing program!
St. Anthony’s Free Clothing Program provides new and gently-used clothing to individuals and families experiencing homelessness and poverty.
Scholars split into three groups, with each group working in different parts of the Free Clothing Program’s facility! While some Scholars spent time quality checking donated clothing, others emptied storage bins by hanging new clothing items on racks for guests to peruse at their leisure.
The third group of Scholars worked directly with the community members who had scheduled appointments to “shop” at the store. These Scholars held conversations in different languages to help community members find new clothing for themselves or their families!
With the Winter season fast approaching, ensuring San Francisco’s unhoused community has warm clothing is imperative. With deaths attributed to hypothermia doubling in California since 2016, distributing warm and resistant clothing is one way to protect vulnerable populations from experiencing drastic weather in the coming months.
Volunteering together provided Scholars the opportunity to learn about essential services that make up the fabric of the public health safety net in San Francisco. It also helped Scholars connect with each other in-person for the first time, establishing the building blocks for their own, personal public health networks while putting their knowledge into practice!
About SF AHEC Scholars: The SF AHEC Scholars Program is a supplemental education and experiential program that provides students enrolled in health professions programs and majors with education materials and experiential opportunities focused on community health. The ultimate goal of the AHEC Scholars Program is to encourage aspiring health professionals to consider community health professions to directly support vulnerable communities.
This publication was supported by the California AHEC with HRSA Grant Number: U77HP23071.