Volunteers give new boots to hundreds of homeless people in Hartford
HARTFORD — What started with a Hartford police officer buying a homeless man shoes several years ago has blossomed into a day that puts new winter boots on hundreds of homeless men, women and children, drawing about 300 people to the event Saturday at Christ Church Cathedral.
Through a local nonprofit,
Footwear with Care, about 225 men, women and children had their feet checked by a podiatrist as well. Many more walked away with a pair of boots, plus a second pair of shoes, socks, toiletries and a sandwich lunch.
Organizer Abby Sullivan Moore said she wanted to help the city’s homeless after speaking to Deborah Barrows at the community courthouse and later meeting Hartford police Officer Jim Barrett. The event is in its third year.
“We’ve put probably more than 2,600 pairs of new boots, shoes, new socks on the feet of homeless people in Hartford” over those years, Sullivan Moore said. “These are our most vulnerable people and they’re outside in bad weather, walking everywhere without adequate protection. I can’t imagine what its like to always have cold, wet feet and having to navigate life and all the challenges of being homeless with a horrible pair of shoes.”
Podiatrists and podiatry resident students from local hospitals checked people for frost bite, infections, dry and cracked skin, and blisters, according to Chuck Valentine, a doctor from Marlborough who volunteered for a second year.
“Doctoring is about helping,” he said. “It’s very gratifying.”
Volunteer Tracy Bodine found out about the event through her church in Bloomfield, Old St Andrew’s Episcopal Church. Bodine, a Simsbury resident, helped men and women find the right size of boots.
“We’re all human beings trying to be OK. The least we can do is help,” Bodine said.
Fernando Tolentino, who is originally from Manchester but has been staying at the South Park Inn, a Hartford shelter, for the past six months, lamented with Bodine the frigid cold on Saturday morning. Tolentino had been out of the shelter since 6 a.m. and told Bodine that after he left Christ Church Cathedral he would wait for the city library to open. Tolentino said he’s waiting to hear back about a warehouse job for which he has applied.
“There’s a lot of people out there that need this that don’t have a lot of money,” Tolentino said.
While answering reporters’ questions, Officer Jim Barrett — who purchased a pair of shoes for fellow veteran Joseph Edwards years ago after seeing him walk around the city in flip-flops — received high-fives, hugs and thank-you’s from the men, women and children. One boy pointed out that