Herbal Foot Care

Herbal Foot Care

The best type of foot care is collaborative care. This means utilizing both conventional and herbal therapies for patient-focused care. We strive to meet every guest with open hearts and healing hands.

When we offer to care for someone’s feet, we are entering into an intimate and sacred relationship. We are asking them to trust us with not only their body, but their ability to navigate the world. Think about how much we rely on our feet –they lead us to food, to water, to shelter, and to work. They are our contact with the earth and our means of escaping danger. They both inform and reflect our experience as we walk, run, skip, stumble, march and dance our way through life.

Through our work at the Harriet Tubman Foot Clinic and with folks around the world in all manner of circumstances, we have learned to take that responsibility seriously. We hope that through these foot care services, we can offer the hardworking feet of our friends on the street the comfort and care they deserve. Foot care is an opportunity to radiate health throughout the entire body. After a session at our clinic, folks report feel lighter, happier, and move with greater ease. 

Foot care covers the lower leg, foot, and toe nails. We assess the overall health and mobility, including the footwear (socks, shoes, inserts, etc.) of our clinic guests. We have learned that the most important aspect of foot care is self-care. We try to educate our clinic guests on daily foot hygiene, properly fitting footwear, warning signs to look for, and easy to manage self-care techniques to help with existing problems.

A foot worker sits at a foot station caring for someone's foot. They both smile at the camera. In the background are other foot care stations.

Harriet Tubman Foot Clinic

For over 20 years, the Harriet Tubman Foot Clinic has been meeting folks where they are at and helping them get to where they want to go. Lorna first discovered the Harriet Tubman Foot Clinic early in her herbal studies and it was through this work that she learned the true value of collaborative community care. Herbalista is a direct result of this partnership and we owe so much to both the Foot Clinic, the Open Door which started this project, Mercy Community Church and all the other collaborators!

In 2020, after more than a dozen years of service and coordination of the Harriet Tubman Foot Care Clinic, Lorna passed the tub and clippers to new leadership. Footsters Christine Overrocker and Susan Edgett (both long term volunteers) have taken the lead and we are grateful for their dedication and service.

Volunteering + Donations

  • If you would like to volunteer, donate supplies, or simply get more information, please contact the Harriet Tubman Foot Clinic directly at: [email protected]
  • You can also follow them on Instagram @harriettubman.footclinic

Foot Care Resources

For happy feet and toes, please check out these resources!

Herbal Foot Care for Hard Working Feet (A guide)

Herbal Foot Care for Hard Working Feet

Harriet Tubman Foot Clinic Service Manual

Harriet Tubman Foot Clinic Service Manual

Foot Care Resource Section

Foot Care Resource Section

Herbal Foot Care Recipes

Herbal Foot Care Recipes

Foot Friends + Mentors

There are lots of wonderful clinics and foot workers out there doing the good work. We are so thankful for all of the guidance and support we have received over the years. Lorna is especially grateful for all of the foot care nurses who took her under their wing, sharing their techniques and healing energy that she could in turn share with the Harriet Tubman Foot Clinic and with all of you.

Nurse Gudrun Noonan of Happy Feet

Nurse Noonan has a magic touch and combines herbalism, foot care, and loving kindness in a way not often seen. She has been an inspiration to so many foot workers and nurses over the many decades. Nurse Noonan was a pioneer in foot care and her clinic Happy Feet served Atlanta for over 4 decades. She volunteered at Harriet Tubman Foot Clinic on many occasions, teaching us all how to be a more caring and effective foot worker.

Nurse Noonan demonstrating foot care techniques while a group of volunteers look on.

Foot Care Fridays on Skid Row

Foot Care Fridays on Skid Row was a project by the Los Angeles Catholic Workers that took place in the most lovely garden outside of their Hippy Kitchen. As a sister community to the Open Door in Atlanta, we had regular exchanges between the two communities, including the foot clinics. Lorna made two visits to Skid Row to volunteer at Foot Care Friday and is so grateful for the wonderful exchange and sharing of skills.

An outdoor foot clinic with a large mural and trees. There are around 5 stations.

Nurse Cecilia Ibeabuchi

Meet Nurse Ibeabuchi. She has been providing foot care at St Francis House in downtown Boston for decades. This foot care clinic is a part of Boston’s Healthcare for the Homeless Program and is open every Monday-Friday.

In 2016, she was kind enough to allow Lorna to observe and assist in their foot care room. In addition to providing warm soaks, scrubs, socks, and basic care, they also use the time to check in on each patient’s overall health– checking vitals, asking about medications, counseling on basic health issues, and making referrals when necessary. Here, the foot clinic becomes a gateway into the primary care system!

Thank you Nurse Ibeabuchi for your warmth, strength, and dedication to supporting our friends on the street.

Nurse Cecilia Ibeabuchi standing in her foot care room that has lots of informational posters lining the walls.

Nurse Laura Roehrick

Nurse Laura Roehrick has mastered the art of the foot drill and shares her skills with her patients and other foot care workers. She specializes in thickened toenails and calluses and works to show us how we can painlessly and quickly reduce them using high-speed drills. Lorna spent some time with her out west, observing her work and then volunteering along side her at a local foot clinic for the homeless in San Francisco. Laura is also a mobile practitioner and shared many tips that helped inform our mobile work at Herbalista.

Nurse Laura Roehrick stands in front of her van with her mobile herb clinic in a little push cart. Her license plate reads "Toe RN"

Sister Mary

Sister Mary was a nurse and foot care technician who recognized the special needs of our friends on the street. And so, she started a weekly clinic at the Capuchin Day Center for the Homeless in Dublin, Ireland. For a half dozen years she shared both foot care and loving encouragement. In 2016, she kindly let Lorna visit on a few occasions and to assist her in her work. She also encouraged Lorna to continue her training at the SMAE Institute and to always keep learning. Sadly, she passed away a few years ago. She is greatly missed.

Sister Mary stands in her white foot care coat in the middle of her clinic and smiles.

SMAE Institute

The SMAE Instiute has been training foot care workers for over a century. With top notch tutors and a lovely clinic in Maidenhead, England, they train hundreds of foot care workers every year and are helping keep foot care accessible.

A group of clinicians pose together. They are all wearing white clinical tunics. Lorna stands smiling in the back row.

Señor Jose Maria

In the late spring of 2007, Lorna limped her way to the door of Señor Jose’s free clinic along the Camino de Santiago in the Basque region of Spain. He was an integrative practitioner, combining chiropractic training with herbalism. He patched her up and upon discovering she was a trained herbalist, asked her to stay and help him at his clinic while her knees continued to heal. She spent the next three days learning from him and from all of the other visitors to his clinic. She learned the importance of feet and how much we could help people through this important work.

The Open Door Community

Thank you Open Door Community

The Open Door was a resident community in Atlanta, Georgia who was the host for the Harriet Tubman Foot Clinic for over 15 years. The Open Door’s mission was to dismantle racism, sexism and heterosexism, abolish the death penalty, and build community through loving relationships with the homeless and those who are in prison.

In addition to food services, showers, advocacy and grass roots organizing, the Open Door provides medical services to Atlantans in need, sponsoring free medical, foot, herbal and women’s clinics.

After 4 decades of service, the Open Door Community, home to the Harriet Tubman Foot Clinic, closed its Atlanta house and relocated to Baltimore, MD. We greatly miss the community that grew up around the Open Door. We miss their leadership on important issues. We miss their strong opinions that spoke truth to power. And we miss their welcoming hearts that built a more loving Atlanta.

A Painting with water, flowers and sky. It reads "If you live alone, whose feet will you wash?"
A busy foot clinic with around 7 stations.

Foot Care Gallery

A bowl filled with tins of foot salve with colorful tops decorated in children's drawings and lettering.
Feet are soaking in a large, round enamel pan with calendula petals and flowers floating in the water.
The foot clinic crew all pose and smile for a picture. Most of them are wearing colorful plastic aprons.
A foot care worker and happy patient smile for the camera. The patient has their foot resting on the lap of the foot worker. There is a large foot tub with calendula flowers floating in it.
A gentleman relaxes at a footcare station, leaning against the wall behind him with his eyes closed and smiling. The foot workers at the two stations turn and smile at the camera.
A Painting with water, flowers and sky. It reads "If you live alone, whose feet will you wash?"
Several filleted nopal pads are splayed open and laying on a foot that is pink and burned. A gloved hand dabs at the foot.
A busy foot clinic with around 7 stations.
Nurse Noonan demonstrating foot care techniques while a group of volunteers look on.
An outdoor foot clinic with a large mural and trees. There are around 5 stations.
Nurse Cecilia Ibeabuchi standing in her foot care room that has lots of informational posters lining the walls.
Lorna sits on a cushion on the ground at a foot care station. On the stool in front of her is rested someone's foot and she is wearing gloves and working on their foot.
Two foot workers at their stations smile at the camera. One holds a foot in their lap on a towel.
Nurse Laura Roehrick stands in front of her van with her mobile herb clinic in a little push cart. Her license plate reads "Toe RN"
A crew member of Occupy medical stands in the middle of a large canvas tent, surrounded by wound care and foot care supplies.
A scene of the foot clinic at work. There are at least 5 stations visible with foot workers holding the feet of their patients in their laps. The foot workers have on masks.
Two foot care stations have patients seated at them. The back of the t-shirt of one of the foot workers reads "raising the herbal army".
The crew of the foot workers at the Harriet Tubman Foot Clinic stand posing for a picture.
A foot worker holds a foot in their hand and smiles.
Lorna is holding someone's foot in her lap on a towel and working on it with a dremel in her hand. She is in an outdoor clinic with other stations behind her.
A foot worker is sitting in a camping chair on the ground with a foot resting in her lap on a towel. She has a camp light on her head and smiles at the camera. The patient is also facing the camera and gives the peace sign.
A foot worker sits on the forest floor with a foot on a tray in her lap. She is dressing a wound and has wound care items on another enameled tray to her side.
Two people with gloves work on the foot of a seated patient. In the background another crew member is carrying a hot water kettle.
Someone bends over washing their foot in a tub with a first aid wound care kit behind them and a tray next to them.
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