Allan Appel Photo
When volunteer foot washers removed Dorothy Jordan’s sneakers and socks, the excoriated toes were so red and raw that as she dipped them in a basin of warm water, she called out in pain and clutched at the shirt of her friend David Pratt. Jordan, an extroverted homeless woman with a drinking problem who likes to go by the name of Dolly, tried to make a joke of it. “Look at the smoke!” she exclaimed.
This was no ordinary ceremony of foot-washing that traditionally and symbolically takes place on Maundy Thursday before Easter in Christian houses of worship.
Thursday afternoon’s event was was a full wash cum podiatric clinic sponsored for the second year by Trinity Episcopal Church and its outreach program to the homeless, called Chapel on the Green.
The service commemorates and recalls Jesus’ washing the feet of his disciples and, before that, Abraham’s cleaning the sand off three visitors to his tent in the desert, in Genesis. Those visitors turned out to be angels.
To Jordan and many of the other homeless people at Thursday’s event, the washers were, if not angels, then providers of much needed comfort. According to Rev. Alex Dyer of St. Paul and St. James in Wooster Square, the average homeless person walks 8.5 miles a day.
John Nelson, whose feet were being washed by volunteer Margi Pikaart, said 8.5 is nothing. “My feet is my money,” he said, adding that he often covers 18 to 20 miles a day collecting cans and doing odd jobs. He sleeps in the city’s overflow shelter, he said.
At Thursday’s outdoor service, volunteers washed Jordan’s and 39 pairs of other homeless feet.
They also conducted a brief interview on the health and welfare of each washee. Then they massaged and lotioned the feet. If all was well, a new pair of socks was offered along with a voucher for $40 towards a pair of shoes at Bob’s Surplus.
The washers, who included Ian Douglas, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut, in some cases found indicators of diabetes or other worrisome conditions, as in Jordan’s case. They called over Ron Dunhill (standing behind him), a nurse with Hill Health Center’s homeless outreach program, for further investigation and action.
Dunhill said he was alarmed by Jordan’s condition and would try to get her to the podiatric clinic at Hill Health Center. He said he met her at the railroad station nearly three years ago when she came to town with her boyfriend, a veteran. When the boyfriend cut out, she was alone. She has been on the street, he said, for at least two and a half years. Dunhill, who’s been celebrated as a Colorado-born tracker, who keeps track of New Haven’s homeless, has treated Jordan for a broken ankle in the field, as it were; for a variety of reasons she doesn’t come into the clinic.
At Thursday’s clinic he checked her ankle and found it healed and OK. And yet the feet were alarming. “I need to do something quickly.”
After he makes an appointment for her he intends to take her to the clinic by hand.
For those interested in supporting the foot washing program or other aspects of Chapel on the Green’s work, the contact is here. Or call the coordinator Chris Evans at 203 – 777-2197