“I am a refugee and I came to this country when I was five,” said Ka Vang, Meet Minneapolis’ vice president of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Access.“We came to the Chicagoland area, had no clothes, came in the winter, no shoes, nothing that would prepare us for the harsh Midwestern winters.”
Vang and her family, who arrived in 1980 from Laos, benefited from various clothing closets and pantries where they were able to find items that would keep them warm in a new country. Later, in November 2022, Vang connected with Paula Wilhelm at Hennepin Healthcare and began the annual Meet Minneapolis Warm Winter Clothing Drive – where Meet Minneapolis’ partner businesses work to donate warm clothing to Hennepin Healthcare.
Many of those who need winter clothing for their hospital discharge are people facing housing insecurity, said Geoffrey Roe, the nursing manager of Hennepin Healthcare’s emergency department. The department is the busiest in the state and cared for more than 100,000 patients in 2024, of which about a third self-reported housing insecurity according to Roe…