Project Antifreeze
Donation protected
My name is Andy Scheinok, and I am a 3rd year medical student at the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City, UT and have been fortunate enough to have been a co-president of the school’s student-run Homeless Outreach Free Clinic last year.
As a native-San Diegan, I endured my first real winter in 2017. While I worked at the clinic, it was clear that our patients suffered greatly during the cold months. But the real shock from the cold came on December 16th, 2016 (the first of many for the year in SLC alone) where a homeless man from our community was found frozen to death on a park bench. I couldn't fathom that this was not such an uncommon occurrence in our homeless population every Winter. As I looked into the deaths due to hypothermia in our homeless communities each year even further, it became evident to me that having enough spots for people to stay at the local homeless shelters was rarely the root of our problem. In fact, I found that nearly all of the deaths from hypothermia in our homeless communities across SLC occurred on nights where the local shelter was not filled to capacity.
There are many reasons why a homeless person chooses to sleep on a bench or alleyway rather than stay in a shelter. However, there is no excuse or reason that a person should freeze to death as a consequence. Every year in Salt Lake City, there are hypothermia-related injuries and deaths amongst the homeless community that could have been/can be avoided.
Project Antifreeze, LLC aims to address this issue directly. Over the next two years of medical school, our goals are to:
1. Provide each and every homeless individual in Salt Lake City (then county, statewide, and throughout neighboring Idaho, Wyoming and Montana) with a NASA-Grade Emergency Mylar blanket for this and upcoming Winters. Emergency Mylar blankets allow for greater than 90% heat retention and can be purchased for 40-50 cents a blanket. This means that each dollar you donate could possibly save the life of 2 people this winter.
2. Educate individuals at the shelters, clinics, or on the streets, on how and why using the blankets can make a huge difference in preventing hypothermia-related illness and death.
3. Continue to build upon existing relationships and forge new ones every year with hospitals, clinics, community outreach programs and the like.
4. Improve and make adjustments to this model over a two year period, with the goal of ultimately creating a sustainable model that can be shared with fellow and future medical students at medical programs across the country.
5. Have a well ordered, working business and partially self-sustainable model that can be transferred to another community outreach volunteer pending my departure to a Residency program out-of-state in 2020.
Every single dollar donated to Project Antifreeze will be spent on improving the safety and well-being of those in our homeless population this winter and in those to come. I look forward to updating you all with photos, anecdotes, and warm stories in the near future!
-Andy Scheinok
As a native-San Diegan, I endured my first real winter in 2017. While I worked at the clinic, it was clear that our patients suffered greatly during the cold months. But the real shock from the cold came on December 16th, 2016 (the first of many for the year in SLC alone) where a homeless man from our community was found frozen to death on a park bench. I couldn't fathom that this was not such an uncommon occurrence in our homeless population every Winter. As I looked into the deaths due to hypothermia in our homeless communities each year even further, it became evident to me that having enough spots for people to stay at the local homeless shelters was rarely the root of our problem. In fact, I found that nearly all of the deaths from hypothermia in our homeless communities across SLC occurred on nights where the local shelter was not filled to capacity.
There are many reasons why a homeless person chooses to sleep on a bench or alleyway rather than stay in a shelter. However, there is no excuse or reason that a person should freeze to death as a consequence. Every year in Salt Lake City, there are hypothermia-related injuries and deaths amongst the homeless community that could have been/can be avoided.
Project Antifreeze, LLC aims to address this issue directly. Over the next two years of medical school, our goals are to:
1. Provide each and every homeless individual in Salt Lake City (then county, statewide, and throughout neighboring Idaho, Wyoming and Montana) with a NASA-Grade Emergency Mylar blanket for this and upcoming Winters. Emergency Mylar blankets allow for greater than 90% heat retention and can be purchased for 40-50 cents a blanket. This means that each dollar you donate could possibly save the life of 2 people this winter.
2. Educate individuals at the shelters, clinics, or on the streets, on how and why using the blankets can make a huge difference in preventing hypothermia-related illness and death.
3. Continue to build upon existing relationships and forge new ones every year with hospitals, clinics, community outreach programs and the like.
4. Improve and make adjustments to this model over a two year period, with the goal of ultimately creating a sustainable model that can be shared with fellow and future medical students at medical programs across the country.
5. Have a well ordered, working business and partially self-sustainable model that can be transferred to another community outreach volunteer pending my departure to a Residency program out-of-state in 2020.
Every single dollar donated to Project Antifreeze will be spent on improving the safety and well-being of those in our homeless population this winter and in those to come. I look forward to updating you all with photos, anecdotes, and warm stories in the near future!
-Andy Scheinok
Organizer
Andy Scheinok
Organizer
Salt Lake City, UT
