As the first weekend in February approached and temperatures neared record lows, Liz Lowry, MPH couldn’t stop thinking about the Philadelphians who wouldn’t be able to escape the cold.
“In one of the local Facebook groups I’m part of, someone posted that health centers were seeing patients walk in with frostbite on their hands,” says Lowry, one of Temple Health’s Key Account Managers. “They were starting a collection of scarves and gloves to donate, and I thought, ‘I should do that too.’”
Lowry wasn’t quite sure how to handle the logistics until she saw a post from a woman in another local Facebook group, detailing how she’d organized a donation drive for Kensington residents.
“I reached out to her and asked, ‘How did you do it?’” Lowry recalls. “She put me in touch with an organization called Recovery Done Simple, which is out on the streets building meaningful relationships with the Kensington community. They helped me find a community center called Sunshine House, which could get the donations to the people who really needed them.”
An Outpouring of Support
To secure donations, Lowry once again leveraged the power of social media, posting in a Facebook group for Elkins Park, where she lives.
“That Saturday, I wrote that I’d set up a bin at the town library, and that I was looking for donations of anything that could warm people up: gloves, hats, coats, hand warmers,” she says. “When I came back three hours later, there was just a mountain of stuff.”
“I think we received so much support because when people walked outside that morning, they thought, ‘Oh my God. Anyone who doesn’t have any relief from this is going to be in trouble,’” Lowry reflects. “I put everything in my car and drove it to the Sunshine House—which, at that point, had been open 24 hours a day for 3 days in a row to let people come in and get some relief from the cold. When I showed up with all these warm clothes, they were thrilled.”
“I went back to the donation bin on Sunday night, and there were even more things than there had been the day before,” she continues. “It just kept growing. I took the donations back to the Sunshine House, and I did the same thing on Monday. That was supposed to be my last day, but since then, people have dropped off even more donations. I still have to pick them up!”
A Calling to Serve
The drive’s incredible success earned Lowry a feature on 6ABC Action News, and she hopes to host another campaign in the near future—ideally with the team at TUH-Episcopal Campus.
“At Temple Health, we do so much to serve our community, and Episcopal does an especially good job connecting patients with the resources they need, whether it’s through their substance use disorder, behavioral health, or crisis response services,” she says.
That same commitment to service drives Lowry in her role at Temple Health—and motivated her decision to start the donation campaign.
“I just feel really strongly that, if you’re in a position to help out, you should help out where you can,” she explains. “I’m so lucky in that I’m more fortunate than a lot of people, so I try to find places where I can make a difference.”