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Kacie Whaley | Aug 24, 2017

Penn hospital continuing Save our Socks initiative

The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP), part of the Penn Medicine system, is continuing its Save Our Socks initiative in an effort to stop the unnecessary discarding of medical nonslip socks and put them to use for the homeless, Penn Medicine said in a release.

Poppy Bass, who works in information services at Penn Medicine, organized the initiative by finding organizations that would accept the socks, finding a way to wash them, and figuring out how to collect the socks.

To find places that would accept the socks, Bass contacted Laura Lombardo, the manager of community relations. She suggested Prevention Point, People's Emergency Center and the University City Hospitality Coalition as places that would be willing to cooperate.

Bass recruited the help of Victor Jordan of materials management at HUP to help her with cleaning the socks. The department, which cleans all of the linens belonging to HUP, agreed to pick up and clean the socks, at no charge.

Finally, Bass approached perioperative services with the effort of collecting the socks. The department uses over 12,000 pairs of socks annually. They agreed to post signs throughout the unit informing patients of how they can donate their nonslip socks to the homeless.

“Patients usually just take them off and leave them,” Joyce Stengel, HUP nurse manager of perioperative services, said in the release.

Since beginning in 2016, Save Our Socks has been a great success and has donated over 1,900 pains of socks to the less fortunate.

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