Upstate Foot Care Program Wins Community Hope Award from Rescue Mission Alliance

Upstate Medical University’s Helping Hands for Forgotten Feet, which provides monthly footcare and health screenings to women and men experiencing homelessness, was honored by the Rescue Mission Alliance with a 2022 Community Hope Award.

Helping Hands for Forgotten Feet (HHFF) was started by a group of Upstate medical students about 10 years ago and is now one of Upstate’s Service-Learning groups. Run by four student leaders, a group of first- and second-year medical students meet monthly at the shelter to run the clinic with the help of Barbara Feuerstein, MD ’84, associate professor of medicine, who oversees the program, and several local podiatrists who volunteer their time.

Accepting the award from the Rescue Mission Alliance are medical students Dominique Alexis ’25, Elsa Diaw ’26, Jessica Leipman ’25, Rachel Fisher ’24, Julie Ehrlich ’23, Anna Kanter ’24 and Simone Seward, director of Upstate’s Center for Community Engagement.

patients each month. Recently, a return patient addressed a volunteer by name and asked to be screened by him.

“It was a small interaction, but I think that it is a testament to the program being a consistent and trusting place for these individuals and to our student volunteers who are dedicated to serving,” Alexis says.

Feuerstein says students treat the patients with amazing respect, dignity, and care. “They open their hearts to them,” she says.

Dr. Feuerstein, an endocrinologist at the Joslin Center, does a general health screening that includes a diabetes screening with the help of the students. She says men and women who experience homelessness often have foot issues because they are on their feet all day, often wearing old shoes that are either too small or too big and without a way to care for their feet. The clinic provides services from bathing to nail and callous trimming, to fungus and wound care and neuropathy care.

Second-year medical student Dominique Alexis says the clinic serves about 20 to 25

The Rescue Mission Alliance is thrilled with contributions of the clinic volunteers, said Mackenzie Naum, senior director of development, regarding the award.

“This team is an important piece of putting love into action here in the Syracuse community,” Naum says.