Mary’s Shelter
Title: Summer with Mary’s, Moms, and Mavericks
Student Interns:
Ayesha Nanda
Drexel University College of Medicine at Tower Health
Academic Preceptor:
Daniel Schidlow, MD
Drexel University College of Medicine
Community Preceptor:
Christine Folk, RN
Mary’s Shelter
Community Site:
Mary’s Shelter serves as both a resource outreach center for pregnant women and those with children under 4 and as a shelter for unhoused youth aged 14 to 21. Mary’s provides baby formula, diapers, pantry items, baby gear, clothes, and many other items to roughly 300 clients who visit monthly as part of the outreach program, and provides services and benefits to under-resourced and underserved women to support their health and their children’s health. The organization also hosts the Berks Free Community Clinic, which provides healthcare to uninsured individuals of all ages. Its residential programs provide residence for unhoused youth, help with job searches, GED and college degree acquisition, life experience workshops, and housing programs to help them transition to independent living.
Team’s Experience:
The Bridging the Gaps intern served as a public health literacy and community outreach intern at Mary’s Shelter. In the community outreach capacity, the intern helped caseworkers provide resources to clients, receive and organize donations, work the front desk, and provide healthcare navigation for insurance and insurance billing for underinsured and uninsured clients through counseling and pamphlets. For the resident youth, the intern held health literacy workshops on sexual and oral health and one-on-one office-hour-style sessions offering mentorship, career advice, and educational guidance. The intern also implemented a creative photography project and held an educational outreach event at the Drexel Anatomy Lab for the residents.
Reflections
Working at Mary’s provided me with a greater understanding of the importance of outreach programs. The staff at Mary’s Shelter wear so many hats and are an integral part of how benefits actually reach the people who need them. Mary’s Shelter not only taught me about the community that I am surrounded with and will serve in the future, but also the people who work here, who may never serve at a hospital, but are the backbone of health outcomes for these communities.
Ayesha Nanda
