“I am a refugee and I came to this country when I was five,” said Ka Vang, Meet Minneapolis’ vice president of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Access.“We came to the Chicagoland area, had no clothes, came in the winter, no shoes, nothing that would prepare us for the harsh Midwestern winters.”
Vang and her family, who arrived in 1980 from Laos, benefited from various clothing closets and pantries where they were able to find items that would keep them warm in a new country. Later, in November 2022, Vang connected with Paula Wilhelm at Hennepin Healthcare and began the annual Meet Minneapolis Warm Winter Clothing Drive – where Meet Minneapolis’ partner businesses work to donate warm clothing to Hennepin Healthcare.
Many of those who need winter clothing for their hospital discharge are people facing housing insecurity, said Geoffrey Roe, the nursing manager of Hennepin Healthcare’s emergency department. The department is the busiest in the state and cared for more than 100,000 patients in 2024, of which about a third self-reported housing insecurity according to Roe.
Other patient populations who may need clothing after discharge include people who have been in accidents that lead to their clothes being cut off their bodies in order to treat them. As a Level 1 adult and pediatric trauma center – the highest designation for trauma services – Hennepin Healthcare also receives patients transferred from nearby states who are in need of specialized and immediate care.
“It has been a frigid couple of weeks, and so we know now more than ever the importance of making sure people are clothed appropriately,” said Jennifer DeCubellis, CEO of Hennepin Healthcare. “We’re seeing frostbite. We’re seeing hypothermia, as the state’s largest safety net hospital. We see an incredible amount of trauma come in.”
The cold can also negatively affect those with pre-existing health conditions. According to the American Heart Association, because the cold causes blood vessels to constrict and raises blood pressure, people who are at risk of heart disease have a higher risk of stroke or heart attacks in cold weather. People with respiratory diseases like asthma may also be affected by cold air constricting airways leading to “wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath, or a burning feeling in the chest.”
Sending patients out in appropriate clothing is not just a matter of preserving their health, but also their dignity.
“Realistically, I feel like half of our job is providing comfort and dignity and half of it is providing (patients) safety from the weather,” said Roe, who noted that the emergency department has a clothing closet of its own, but shares that closet with other departments, such as inpatient units and pediatric units, to ensure that anyone who arrives at Hennepin Healthcare and says they need clothing for outside weather is able to receive something appropriate for the weather and for their own dignity (such as headcoverings for religious reasons and clothing items for trans and nonbinary people), along with assistance from Hennepin Healthcare’s social work team or referrals to outside services as needed.
When temperatures feel like they are below 30 degrees (wind chill, etc.), the emergency department makes sure patients have somewhere to go or stay indoors.
“We work to try to make sure those patients are somewhere in a shelter or something before 11 p.m.,” said Roe. “If we can’t find some place for them, we try to hold on to them until at least 4 a.m.”
“Yesterday, as donations were coming in for today’s event … our team members were in the emergency clothing room looking for items for a patient,” said DeCubellis. “That patient was discharging in 15 minutes and did not have appropriate clothing to get out of here. And one of our team members in the room knew this event was happening today, said, ‘Give me that 15 minutes. I’m gonna run across campus. I’m gonna make sure that they leave safely and they leave with respect and dignity.’”
Over the course of their first two years, the network of hospitality businesses partnering with Meet Minneapolis were able to collect more than $15,000 in new winter clothing and associated items, such as boots and hats, for children and adults. At a press event on Thursday, however, it was announced that more than $22,000 in donations had been received for this particular drive, which ran from Nov. 18 2024 to Jan. 6. Vang later added that with clothes still coming in that the drive would likely result in more than $23,000 worth of donations.
Some of Meet Minneapolis’ partnered businesses, according to Vang, were very creative in their approach to soliciting donations.
“The Marquette (Hotel) and Windows at Marquette, what they did was they hosted some watch parties in their lounge,” said Vang. “What they asked people to do was just to give a dollar tip or a few dollars tip to the Warm Winter Clothes Drive in a little jar. And they collected over $800.”
“If anybody hears about this (event) I want them to know that Minneapolis cares,” said Vang. “For so long, I think people have told other narratives about what Minneapolis is and what Minneapolis isn’t. I wanted to tell a different narrative.”
Deanna Pistono
Deanna Pistono is MinnPost’s Race & Health Equity fellow. Follow her on Twitter @deannapistono or email her at dpistono@minnpost.com.
