OrthoNorCal is proud to announce that we partnered with the Soles4Souls and Our Hearts to Your Soles organizations, as well as the Red Wing Shoe Company in order to provide orthopedic foot care, food and distribute several thousand pairs of shoes to those in need this holiday season at Homeless Service Center, Santa Cruz.
Since 2007, Our Hearts to Your Soles has been organizing volunteers across the United States in order to assist the less fortunate by giving them footwear, food and free foot examinations. To-date, Our Hearts to Your Soles has helped over 24,000 people in the low-income and homeless communities across the nation. The key to the Our Hearts to Your Soles program is the extra step taken at every distribution center where experienced doctors provide orthopedic foot care at no cost to the visitors.
“We’re thrilled to once again be partnering with Red Wing Shoes and Our Hearts to Your Soles,” said Buddy Teaster, CEO of Soles4Souls that has partnered with the Our Hearts to Your Soles organization for the past seven years. “By combining medical expertise and high quality footwear, this project makes a real difference to thousands of people at dozens of homeless shelters across the country. After seven years, this partnership is still going strong and, as we head into winter, the timing couldn’t be better.”
This year, in the weeks leading up to and after Thanksgiving, OrthoNorCal and Our Hearts to Your Soles partnered with Homeless Service Center (HSC) in the Santa Cruz area to advance the anti- poverty mission: distribute footwear, food and clothes; and carry out free foot examinations to those in need.
“This is an annual tradition which I always look forward to, since we are able to provide orthopedic foot care at a time of year when it is especially important to have healthy feet and a solid pair of shoes,” said Dr. Nicholas Abidi, orthopedic surgeon at OrthoNorCal, specializing in foot and ankle care.
“Our Hearts to Your Soles continues to expand its national outreach to the most-needy Americans through our annual Thanksgiving event,” said Dr. Stephen F. Conti, MD and President of Our Hearts to Your Soles. “This would not be possible without the generosity and compassion of our friends at Red Wing Shoes and Soles4Souls. This year our relationship has strengthened with each of us making a commitment to continue and expand our charitable cause to protect the health and dignity of those in need.”
“Healthy feet are a foundation for a healthy body,” said Mark Urdahl, Executive Vice President of the Red Wing Shoe Company. “Our Hearts to Your Soles doesn’t just provide footwear to those in need. They staff experienced doctors at their sites to make sure foot issues are tended to and to ensure the footwear fits properly. For the people we’re helping, that attention is crucial. This may be the first time many of these people have experienced that level of care.”
In addition to Dr. Nicholas Abidi (OrthoNorCal), Brian Neep, CPO (Beyond Prosthetics), Beth Abidi, M.D. (Physicians Medical Group of Santa Cruz County), Hannah Farquharson, M.D. (Dignity Health Medical Group), Javier Cortes, Collin Abidi, Spencer Takata (Homeless Shelter Volunteer Coordinator) and DariaGorohova (OrthoNorCal) participated in the shoe and sock fittings.
