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This fall, Semester 3 nursing students collected close to $1,600 in donations of small denomination gift cards and bus tickets to donate to MOSH (Mobile Outreach Street Health).

MOSH is a collaborative primary health care service that services metro Halifax. The donated gift cards and bus tickets will support the health and well-being of MOSH’s clients, who face various challenges including insecure housing, food insecurity, and homelessness.

The cards for care project is part of the students’ coursework for their Population Health Nursing class. Grounded in population health promotion, the course reflects some of the key concentrations of Dal’s nursing education programs: decreasing health inequity and fostering social justice.

The semester three students recently met with registered nurse (RN) and MOSH team member, Jan Spice who accepted the donations.

Spice shared that the cards/ bus tickets will be used by staff to have in the MOSH van and their backpacks when they are out in the community. " The gift cards gives the client ability to get out of the cold and get a hot meal and some dignity.”

The project is a collaboration with Dal Nursing and MOSH. A MOSH RN provides a guest lecture in the students’ population health class where they receive an introduction to the population and work of RNs in the community. The students indicated that they wanted to do something to help and provide service to their community.

Professors Karen Curry and Damilola Iduye are proud of the students’ efforts and pleased that they demonstrated commitment to learning about how nurses work in the community to support populations and see health equity in practice.

“The students learned about Population Health and Community Health Nursing this semester and our hope is that some students will be motivated to consider community health as a career and to carry the principles they are learning in this course in their nursing practice no matter where they practice as nurses,” says Curry.