Great volunteering experience  with Avicenna Community Health Center (avicennahealth.org). Avicenna is Champaign-Urbana’s only completely free health clinic and provides absolutely free medical care for uninsured and underinsured residents of Champaign County. The clinic provides acute care as well as management of chronic medical conditions, with a focus on preventative medicine. Patients are given prescriptions for affordable medications and labs are done for free, if indicated. We also have free samples (including inhalers and diabetic supplies etc.) and in-clinic basic lab tests. Patients are referred to other facilities if they need specialized care.

The Avicenna Grants Team is gearing up for a big push to gain more funding for our wonderful free clinic, and to do this, we need your help!

Experience with the grants team will:

• Provide you experience with how to organize, write, and polish professional grants
• Familiarize you with leaders of the clinical community in Champaign County and the Midwest
• Acquaint you with the challenges and mechanics of operating a free clinic
• Provide you an opportunity to directly expand medical services to the members of our community most in need
• Offer you a quality volunteer opportunity that can be completed on your own time, in your own home, while still directly benefiting your community in a tangible, measurable way

The Grants Team’s responsibilities include:

• Searching online for grant opportunities and adding relevant grants to grants team’s database
• Contributing to grant-writing, including proposals, budgets, and supplemental information
• Meeting once a month to update the team and plan future projects

We are seeking volunteers who are interested in learning more about the clinic, as a knowledge of the clinic is critical to contributing to the team. We will set up clinic tours and informative sessions in order to acquaint you with Avicenna.

Additional skills that are beneficial, but not required include:

• Experience with grant-writing, whether clinical or research-oriented
• Interest in learning more about free clinic operations
• Experience with budgeting
• A willingness to respond to emails in a timely and professional manner is required. Most of our communications will take place via email, so you must be willing and able to communicate clearly via email as to what tasks you are willing to take on, updates on your work, and project deadlines.

If you are interested in joining the grants team or for more information, please contact me (Alex Kelly) at alexkelly815@gmail.com.