You’ve asked: How can we help during pandemic? Here are some ways

During the current public health emergency, we’ve heard from alumni, faculty, staff, and students who are looking for ways to get involved and help others.

Here are a few projects in which members of the Mitchell Hamline community are participating. Please let us know of other efforts you are involved in and what sort of help is needed, and we’ll continue to update this list.

 

Help these alums supply tablets to hospitals

Linda Geller Axelrod and her husband Leonard – both Hamline Law graduates (’88 and ’82, respectively) who met at a law school meeting — started a foundation in 2012 dedicated to helping hospitalized patients and their families. During the current pandemic, the foundation is raising money to buy tablets for hospitals.

Because of the health risks of being around someone with COVID-19, many family members can’t be with loved ones when they’re hospitalized. Talking via tablet a next best option; the Axelrods have so far sent 75 Amazon Fire tablets to hospitals across Minnesota.

“Anything we can do to make things a little bit easier for these patients and their families we would love to be able to do it,” Linda told WCCO in a recent interview.

You can help the Axelrods buy more tablets by donating to the Olivia and Howard Geller Foundation for Patient Safety.

 

Connect with these faculty to support prisoners freed on medical release

During a time when public health officials are asking people to socially distance, states are also grappling with how to stem the spread of COVID-19 in prison populations.

Reducing the overall population is one way, and all three of Minnesota’s law schools have teamed up to try to help. Mitchell Hamline’s LAMP and Reentry clinics are part of an effort to help people who are incarcerated in Minnesota apply for medical release. Students from Mitchell Hamline, University of Minnesota, and University of St. Thomas law schools are volunteering to work with individual applicants as they fill out the necessary forms.

Mitchell Hamline faculty members Jon Geffen and Brad Colbert are working with Perry Moriearty from the University of Minnesota Law School and Mark Osler from the University of St. Thomas College of Law. They’ve already received funding from the Graves Foundation to support the work.

“These students have really stepped up,” said Jon Geffen. “They’re hard-working and making an amazing impact on individuals seeking medical release.”

In short order, the law schools helped create a guide for incarcerated people and their families to use to fill out the medical release forms, which the Department of Corrections posted on its website. Student volunteers now operate a hotline on weekdays, meaning any incarcerated person who calls can get help completing the form during one call. “This expedites the process significantly,” Geffen added.

But, Colbert added, “getting people released from prison is only the first step. People who are released from prison generally need lots of support; people released under these extraordinary circumstances will need even more support.”

People are who are interested in helping provide support to those recently released from prison can contact Jon Geffen at Jon.Geffen @mitchellhamline.edu or Brad Colbert at brad.colbert @mitchellhamline.edu.

More information

For current health-related information, we encourage you to visit the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Minnesota Department of Health websites. We will also update school information on the website.