Many Hurricane Laura evacuees remain in New Orleans nearly seven weeks after the disaster. Staff members at DePaul Community Health Centers (DCHC) continue donating items for evacuees such as clothing, toiletries, and diapers. Sister Bonnie Hoffman, vice president for mission integration, coordinates DCHC’s donation efforts.
“Many of our staff were very generous in donating clean, casual wear clothing for the evacuees—infants and toddlers, children, teens, adult, male, female. The DCHC team expressed compassion and love for those going through such a difficult situation, being away from their homes and feeling overwhelmed and helpless,” said Hoffman. “Some of our employees gathered and sorted more than 40 large boxes of clothing and toiletries, labeling boxes by size, and delivering them to United Way. Diapers, formula and adult protection donations are funneled through the Junior League of New Orleans.”
A partner in this effort was Impact Ministries of New Orleans, whose pastor is the infectious disease specialist for DCHC, Stacy Greene, MD.
DCHC providers Sara Darensbourg, Timothy Irizarry, Anna Villanueva, and Freya Zork, in early September, joined a community-wide effort along with other local healthcare agencies to assist evacuees by staffing a table daily for two weeks from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and gave blood pressure and glucose screenings to more than 400 evacuees.
Additionally, DCHC’s Women, Infants and Children (WIC) staff fulfilled supply requests from evacuees, and then shuttled the items to the various hotels where they resided. DCHC’s Executive Director Stephenie Marshall coordinated DCHC’s participation in these activities.