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Helping Healthcare Workers

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If you go into most U.S. emergency rooms, you’ll likely find staff wearing Crocs.  Because Crocs are waterproof and can be easily washed off, it’s a big advantage as workers take extra precautions because of the spread of COVID-19. Now, 10,000 pairs are being donated a day to healthcare workers on the frontlines.

Since their daily donations started, Crocs has seen hundreds of thousands of requests for shoes come in. Currently, they’ve provided almost 400,000 pairs, and are working on fulfilling as many as they can until they run out. Some are being shipped directly to individual requests, while others have gone straight to healthcare facilities.

Crocs has been a partner of Soles4Souls for many years, helping us with shoe distributions overseas and at schools around the country. In the last few weeks, Soles4Souls has received an influx of requests for shoes, some from hospital facilities like North Central Bronx Hospital in New York, as well as St. Francis Medical Center in Midlothian, Virginia.

Healthcare workers at St. Francis Medical Center pose in their new Crocs.

Jennifer Scholtz, a Clinical Pharmacy Coordinator at St. Francis, sent us an email asking for Crocs for her team. She mentioned the challenges in obtaining PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) right now, and that having shoes like Crocs would allow her team to conserve the PPE they have, by being able to clean and reuse their shoes in sterile rooms.  

After receiving the request, our Soles4Souls team was able to gather 19 pairs of Crocs donated, and shipped them to the team.

“Most of our staff works hourly, and a new pair of Crocs to devote to the sterile rooms would be about 3 hours of salary.  This really helps us provide better care for our patients,” said a staff member.

And last week, the team of nurses in New York walked into the hospital with new Crocs as well. 

“I rarely get a chance to sit so my feet were crying for relief … Thank you for my new Crocs. It felt like I was walking on air all day,” says Lanessa, a nurse in the unit.

“These workers have our deepest respect, and we are humbled to be able to answer their call and provide whatever we can to help during this unprecedented time,” said Crocs president and CEO Andrew Rees.