Clinics are Back, and They’re Plant Powered!
Hello Friends!
The big news this month is that outdoor mobile clinics are up and running for the fall. We are out offering body work and herbs in Greenfield and have two robust herbal clinics in Great (Turner’s) Falls and Springfield. COVID-protocols are in effect: please wear a mask if you come.
We spent our short hiatus over the summer growing plants, hosting volunteer workdays, and revamping our volunteer systems. Thanks to our new volunteer coordinator, Tory Field, we created new ways for volunteers to support the work that we do, including a Grow-a-Row program (the Herbalista Free Clinic coined this term) in which local herbalists and gardeners signed up to grow plants for the People’s Medicine Project apothecary.
The benefits of the Grow a Row Program are many, taking pressure off of our small staff to grow/process everything and distributing the task of growing across a network of small farms and gardens.
Being supported by community in this way gives us more ease in what we do and insulates the apothecary against risk (such as a flood event that wipes out an entire garden), but even more than that, it lifts our spirits to think about how the plants increasingly form a web of healing throughout our community.
Those plants, along with the ones that Ced Clearwater and volunteers grow and harvest in the People’s Medicine Garden, make their way to the apothecary. There, apothecary manager Lynn Golan and volunteers transform them into dried tea blends, syrups, tinctures, glycerites, and more.
From the apothecary, the herbs make their way through clinics, mutual aid distributions, and herbalism consults to people and families who don’t have access to them through other avenues.
But they all start from a seed and a pair of loving hands. We’re delighted to spotlight some of those hands below.
Stay well,
Abby, Leslie, and the PMP Team
- Meet the Growers
- Fall Free Clincs
