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Peters Township club supports help for homeless

By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 5 min read
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As the temperature plummets, the struggle for survival among Pittsburgh’s homeless population intensifies, as Dr. Steven Morreale has seen for himself.

The Peters Township resident’s volunteer work with Pittsburgh Mercy’s Operation Safety Net has taken him to the cold heart of the matter, and he gives the example of one man he met on the street several years ago.

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Woody Lutz, McMurray Rotary Club president, helps with the loading effort.

“I remember him smelling like a smoky burn barrel,” Morreale said. “His boots were leaking like a sieve. He would have had a problem within a week, with what the weather was like, with wet feet.”

For the sake of the man’s health, Morreale delivered some truly positive news: “I have new boots for you that fit you.”

A fellow physician, Dr. Jim Withers, mentioned to Morreale shortly afterward: “Some guy came up to me raving about, ‘Who’s that doctor? He saved my feet!”

Withers, in fact, is the founder of Operation Safety Net, a pioneering endeavor in providing comprehensive medical care to the unsheltered homeless. And one component of the program is providing boots and sleeping bags to help ward off the effects of winter weather.

As for Morreale, he wanted to make sure the footwear recipient knew who his benefactors were.

“I told him, ‘This isn’t from me. These boots are from a whole group of people in the greater South Hills who care about you guys out here.'”

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Dr. Steven Morreale speaks about Operation Safety Net during a McMurray Rotary Club meeting at Atria’s Restaurant in Peters Township.

Since 2011, Morreale has led an effort by the McMurray Rotary Club, of which he is a member, to provide quality footwear for distribution through Operation Safety Net. The club was able to fund the purchase of 300 pairs this year, its highest total so far.

So many boots were ready for pickup that Pittsburgh Mercy representatives made trips on two consecutive days to the Foxpointe Centre building in North Strabane Township, where Albert DeLucia, a McMurray Rotarian and Bethel Park resident who has his insurance office there, arranged to have the footwear delivered.

“We have a number of different styles, and we have a number of different sizes. We have them for men, women, boys and girls,” he said. “So we have a large assortment to hopefully fit as many people as we possibly can.”

They are manufactured by Itasca Footwear of Roseville, Minn.

“We greatly appreciate the manufacturer for the great price they gave us on the boots and being able to pick up the cost of the transportation for us,” DeLucia said. “That went a long way to being able to provide those 300 pairs of boots.”

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Genevieve Gigandet of the Mercy Volunteer Corps helps load boxes full of donated boots for transport to Pittsburgh.

He was joined by Woody Lutz, McMurray Rotary Club 2018-19 president, in helping to load the boots onto Pittsburgh-bound trucks.

“This particular charity is really one of my favorites. What we raise is all from our own Rotarians,” Lutz explained. “It’s really over and above what we normally do in our philanthropy.”

Rotary International is a 1.2 million-member worldwide service organization that supports global, regional and local initiatives. The McMurray club raises about $30,000 annually for distribution to various organizations.

“Winters can be brutal at certain times, and it warms my heart that our folks want to do this and they increased the amount this year over last year,” Lutz said. “I’m very proud of them.”

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Ben Talik, community support specialist with Community Human Services Corp., helps load boxes. The organization works with Operation Safety Net to help provide housing opportunities.

Since the club began its support for Operation Safety Net, Morreale has supplemented the fundraising with his own money to increase the number of boots available.

His involvement in the effort started when he was enrolled in a fellowship program in Atlanta at the Emory University Department of Medicine. There, he met Dr. Neil Shulman, whose 1991 book “What? Dead … Again?” was made into the feature film “Doc Hollywood,” starring Michael J. Fox.

When Morreale, a Peters Township High School graduate, returned to the Pittsburgh area, Shulman put him on a three-way call with Withers, who had founded Operation Safety Net in 1992 as a way to administer medical care directly to people who otherwise wouldn’t receive it. “Street medicine,” as it has come to be known, is predicated on gaining the trust of individuals and includes providing substantive referrals to social services and other avenues of betterment.

Withers encouraged Morreale to join the effort as a clinical volunteer, and his first foray was to Pittsburgh’s Hill District.

“I remember immediately being impressed by Jim, because he was literally walking around picking up insulin needles that were being used for heroin,” Moreale said, “and people were coming up to him and saying, ‘God bless you for picking up that stuff.'”

Along with basic medical care, plus winter boots and sleeping bags, Operation Safety Net’s outreach offers the likes of food and water, over-the-counter medicine and referrals to housing agencies, all in the name of demonstrating that people do care.

“When somebody shows up and does something like that for you, you know it’s real,” Morreale said. “It’s paradigm-changing. It wakes you up.”

For more information about Operation Safety Net, visit www.pittsburghmercy.org/homeless-services/pittsburgh-mercys-operation-safety-net.

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Harry Funk / The Almanac

From left are Tony Brown, Albert DeLucia, Woody Lutz, Ben Talik and Genevieve Gigandet.

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