‘Stay at Home’ is impossible
for over 8,000 people who experience
homelessness in Michigan every day
With all clinical rotations suspended,
U-M medical students are finding ways
to help the people who need it the most
DAN KELLY
SHELTER ASSOCIATION OF WASHTENAW COUNTY
Our core functions have changed a lot. I’m in the middle of the crisis. We’re just adapting to focus on meeting those health needs for folks, keeping them safe, giving them a place to social distance. You need something as simple as sanitizer in order to do that successfully.
CLAIRE GARPESTAD
CO-DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS – WOLVERINE STREET MEDICINE
U-M DOCTOR OF MEDICINE 2021
[top screen text over image reads
Photographed prior to Michigan’s March 24 stay-at-home order]
Wolverine Street Medicine is a student-run organization that aims to increase access to health care for people experiencing homelessness across Southeast Michigan. Prior to the pandemic, we go out on what we call street runs about twice a week, both in the Detroit and Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti areas. We go around in teams of medical students with supervision from a nurse and a physician and provide health care, whether that be footbaths is a pretty common thing that we do, wound care, providing medications and then also just providing resources like socks, cleaning, hygiene supplies, toothbrushes, et cetera.
I think even before the first cases originated in Michigan our first year medical students were gathering supplies and they, t realized that they were getting a lot of donations of isopropyl alcohol, and they realized with the CDC recipe they could make, they could combine that with aloe vera. And it makes hand sanitizer that’s over 70 percent, which is the CDC recommendation of alcohol.
Since the pandemic began,
Wolverine Street Medicine has donated
1,000 bottles of hand sanitizer
for use at shelters and other community sites
Along with bleach, cleaning supplies,
and 300 meal bags for distribution
[top screen text over image reads Photographed prior to Michigan’s March 24 stay-at-home order]
DAN KELLY
SHELTER ASSOCIATION OF WASHTENAW COUNTY
Wolverine Street Medicine, they’ve been a partner for a while now. Well before the COVID crisis began and then during the COVID response, it’s no secret that PPE and other health supplies have been just really hard to get your hands on. What Wolverine has been doing is incredibly appreciated.
[top screen text over image reads Photographed prior to Michigan’s March 24 stay-at-home order]
CLAIRE GARPESTAD
CO-DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS – WOLVERINE STREET MEDICINE
U-M DOCTOR OF MEDICINE 2021
I think Wolverine Street Medicine in general is a really important organization because you can read about all you want, but before you, before you see it and get to interact with that hands on, I think it gives you a different perspective, for sure. And I think it makes me want to be a physician who hopefully is able to continue to serve people from all different backgrounds and all different walks of life.
By Craig McCool, Michigan Medicine
Distributing supplies
A student-run program that brings medical care to the southeast Michigan homeless population has had to adapt in the face of COVID-19.
As the pandemic forced medical schools across the country to pull students from clinical settings, student leaders at the University of Michigan Medical School’s Wolverine Street Medicine initiative recognized that the population served by their program would be especially vulnerable to COVID.
“It occurred to me that, if even people with means are having a hard time buying hand sanitizer right now because stores are out, what does that mean for the homeless population?” said first-year medical school student Kenzie Corbin. “Shelters are crowded spaces. Anything can spread like wildfire in there.”
“What Wolverine Street Medicine has been doing is incredibly appreciated.”
Dan Kelly, executive director of the Washtenaw County Shelter Association.
Wolverine Street Medicine, a program in which Michigan Medicine students help care for southwest Michigan’s vulnerable homeless population through supervised clinic services in local shelters and sometimes on the street, is an important organization.
One of the kits
“It was incredible to see how quickly our student members mobilized and advocated on behalf of our patients and community,” said Claire Garpestad, a third-year medical school student and also the organization’s co-director of operations. “Medical students shifted to fill any role they could, and in doing so, were able to help continue to support this vulnerable population during very challenging times, even from a distance.”
The students turned Wolverine Street Medicine into a distribution network for donated hygiene and health supplies for the region’s homeless, including homemade hand sanitizers. Student volunteers signed up to receive kits to make sanitizer at home. Each kit includes a CDC-sanctioned sanitizer recipe along with a funnel, aloe, isopropyl alcohol and 30-count bag of 2-ounce plastic bottles that were ostensibly designed for the kitchen but are being repurposed for health care.
Assembling the kits
“They are actually for cookie frosting, but we are able to buy them in bulk online and they are the perfect size” for individual hand sanitizer bottles, Corbin said. “The students have a one-week timeframe to use the kits and return the sanitizers to us. We see this as a more sustainable way to involve more students, make more hand sanitizer and keep the social distancing to a maximum.”
Hundreds of mini-bottles of sanitizer have been distributed to shelters in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Detroit through the students’ efforts.
“It’s no secret that PPE and other health supplies have been really hard to get your hands on. In the middle of the crisis, we’re focused on keeping folks safe and giving them a place to social distance. You need something as simple as hand sanitizer in order to do that successfully,” said Dan Kelly, executive director of the Washtenaw County Shelter Association. “What Wolverine Street Medicine has been doing is incredibly appreciated.”
1,000 bottles donated
The students have some institutional funding but are partially reliant on product donations. In addition to sanitizer, the student groups have collected and distributed disinfectant wipes, surgical gloves, masks, and hygiene and meal kits to remain connected to the region’s homeless community through the pandemic.
“While our classrooms might be empty, nothing will ever measure up to the learning opportunities presented by this unfolding health care challenge. I’m proud that our student community is eager to engage,” said Joseph Kolars, senior associate dean for education and global initiatives at the U-M Medical School. “The passion, creativity and speed with which our students are responding to this crisis is gratifying and deeply moving.”
| Deliverables to Date |
| Donations: -1000 face masks -110 N95 Masks -100 boxes of gloves -20 bottles of bleach -150 bottles of clorox wipes |
| -25 gallons of hand sanitizer distributed in over 1000 individual containers |
| – 500+ volunteer hours staffing shelter extension programs- Donations: 200 items of home goods (cups, plates, etc) donated, 150 books/CDs/DVDs, 100 items of clothing |
| -450 bagged lunches |
