Making Sure our Guests are Covered: A Look Inside November’s Open Enrollment Pop-up
Thank you to Molina Healthcare for sponsoring the day, volunteering with our guests, and for your commitment to ensuring our guests receive Medicare and Medicaid Coverage
Linden is one of the most under resourced neighborhoods in Columbus. With high rates of food insecurity, vacant properties, and limited economic investment, our guests who need resources often find ways to get by without accessing them. When we began planning meetings with Molina’s community engagement team this summer, Linden was a neighborhood we all agreed needed our attention.
We set to work creating an event that would bring resources directly to the Linden Community Center. As with all our pop-ups, we wanted to make services accessible by hosting in a space our guests were already familiar and comfortable with. A space that makes accessing resources and connecting with partners feel casual rather than intimidating.
Throughout the space, partners offered medical services, including blood pressure screenings, blood sugar checks, Hepatitis C and HIV testing, and assistance scheduling mammograms and other cancer screenings. We also had partners like Mid-Ohio Food Collective and Jobs and Family Services checking guests’ benefit status and helping them enroll if needed. At the heart of the event was Molina’s care team, making sure guests who were eligible could enroll in a Medicare or Medicaid plan.
Open enrollment is a time most of us only mark with emails from our employer and a quick scan to make sure everything is in order. But for our guests, this is a time that can set the tone for the rest of the year, determining whether they can receive and afford care whenever they need it. Open enrollment can sneak up on people or pass by without much notice, so both teams set out to make sure no one had to go another week, month, or year without the coverage they needed.
But it’s about more than just health coverage. A plan with Molina can provide our guests with medical, dental, and vision care, along with transportation to appointments, pharmacies, and grocery stores, as well as a free phone with service included. Molina helps guests not only gain coverage but also stay connected to their healthcare providers, while offering incentives and greater accessibility for building and maintaining healthy habits.
Of course, our food truck was there, serving what “might have been the best tacos Jesse has ever made,” keeping trust built with a meal at the heart of every guest’s journey that day. Our Make-A-Day Salon, staffed by local stylists, gave guests the chance to leave feeling transformed, inside and out. And our Dignity Market was stocked with hygiene supplies, post-Halloween candy, and all the clothing our guests need as we transition into the colder months. Our Dignity Market volunteers even arranged to donate any left over items to the community center’s free closet for any guests who did not make it to the event.
One guest first came in asking how much we were selling shoes for. The answer, of course, was free! After trying on a pair, he exclaimed, “These are coming home with me!” He came back to grab a pair of blue jeans, then returned again for a belt. Afterwards, he stopped by one more time to show our volunteers his new outfit. They showered him with compliments, telling him how well everything fit and how great he looked. He thanked them all for their help.
The event also sparked conversations among our volunteers about their own health coverage. Whether retired, between jobs, or actively employed, they shared how frustrating it can be to not understand the complexities of health insurance and maintaining coverage until you're suddenly faced with a situation where you might not be able to get the care you need.
One volunteer gathered information from all our partners for a resource binder she is building for patients entering motherhood she works with in a labor and delivery unit. Another picked up information for herself, realizing she wasn't taking full advantage of the benefits available to her.
What started as a goal to bring services to an underserved community created a ripple effect, carrying information and resources to communities far beyond the people we reached on Monday. It sparked conversations about who else needs these resources and how we can work to get them there. And it laid the groundwork for everything still ahead as we continue building our presence in Linden.