2018 Herbalista Service Report

2018 marked the 5 year anniversary of the Herbalista Free Clinic!  We came together to celebrate this milestone at our February Community Health Fair, even running a special distillation on Stella “the still” Culpepper!  We also chose that auspicious day to launch our first online fundraiser– the Healing Wheels Community Fundraiser!

The generosity, belief, and dedication from our beloved community pulled us across the finish line! We surpassed our goal, raising close to $19,000 including off-line donations!?

We are both thrilled and humbled by the opportunity to serve the people, the plants, and the planet.  We look forward to our continued journey together, creating health by the people, for the people!

The Herbalista Health Network recognizes healthcare as a fundamental human right and provides free, holistic services to under-served communities.  Here is a list of clinics and herbal services offered in 2018:

Herb Cart Clinics – 12
Woodruff Park (2)
The Big House on Ponce (2)
Mercy Community Church (8)

First Aid Station – 1
The Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference First Aid Station

Community Health Fairs – 10
The Big House on Ponce (2)
Mercy Community Church (8)

HerbCare Stations – 5
Grant Park Farmers Market (1)
American Herbalists Guild Symposium (1)
Woodruff Park (1)
Mercy Community Church (1)
Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference (1)

HerbShare ATL is our Community Education Programming!  Here’s a list of the classes we offered in 2018.  To keep herbal medicine education accessible, all of our classes are either free, by donation, or on a sliding scale basis!

Plant Rambles – 3
Brown’s Mill Urban Food Forest
Zonolite Park and Community Garden
40 Oaks Nature Preserve

Solidarity Medicine Making Workshops – 3
Clarkston High School Garden Club and the IRC
Spring and Summer Medicine Making with the Homestead ATL

Herbalista Community Health Fair Wellness Class Series – 10
The Big House (2)
Mercy Community Church (8)

Herb Cart Weekend Training – 1
Atlanta

This year our Self-Care Stations experienced a metamorphosis and were reborn as HerbCare Stations.  We offered these pop-up stations as a means of sharing the health, but also empowering people!  These mini-health stations offer folks a chance to care for themselves with herbs and vitamins. It is a chance to both heal and to learn!

They are now a permanent feature of our Atlanta monthly health fair and offered on a regular basis in Dublin as well.  The team has begun to teach classes and offer materials in the Herbalista Toolkit, to help folks set up HerbCare stations of their own.

Our monthly Community Health Fair continues to thrive and in March of 2018 we moved to our new home at Mercy Community Church (the same host of the weekly Harriet Tubman Foot Care Clinic).  We want to say how grateful we are to the 368 Ponce crew for having nurtured the Herb Bus in its infancy and for opening their doors and gardens to us each month so that we could provide needed services to the greater Atlanta community.  

The Mercy Community has now opened its gates to our little health fair and holds a bold and loving vision for how we can live our days– celebrating diversity, radical acts of solidarity, and a commitment to hospitality.  In the words of Lilla Watson “If you have come to help me, you’re wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

If you haven’t already, please come find us at the monthly health fair where we offer free holistic health services, free wellness classes, and endless pots of herbal teas and tonics!

Dublin Herb Bike continued its mission of offering herbal care + comfort to marginalized communities in and around Dublin.  The crew blends clinical care with community wellness education.  Highlights from 2018 included:

• Pop-up HerbCare Station at the Bridgefoot Community Garden
• Provided herbal support at Jigsaw for Community Kitchen Solidarity Dinners via the Herb Bike Clinic and HerbCare Stations
• Plant Ramble along the Royal Canal
• 6 Solidarity Medicine Making Workshops
• Solidarity Medicine Making Workshop and Plant Ramble in conjunction with the Cork Herb Bike at the Restorative Herbalism Gathering
• RAMSI Summer School Medicine Making with children living in Direct Provision
• Herbal Care Packages distributed outside the GPO during a vicious winter storm.

The Herb Bike project in Ireland is growing! The Dublin Herb Bike is thrilled to have a sister project serving the streets of Cork City!  The Cork Herb Bike is a free, mobile clinic offering herbal care + comfort to marginalized communities.   After trainings by Dublin Herb Bike members to pull together protocols, forms, and the like; some Plant Rambles to get the word out; and a series of Solidarity Medicine Making Classes to stock the apothecary, the Cork Herb Bike began services on September 20th!

They began serving residents at the Kinsale Road Accommodation Centre, offering herbal support to folks living in direct provision.  In the longer term, they are planning to help the Centre develop a herb garden, so that residents can use herbs in cooking and teas for themselves!

Follow their adventures on their Facebook page ??

Herbalista continues to both coordinate and provide the herbal medicaments to the Harriet Tubman Foot Care Clinic.  This weekly clinic soothes the weary feet of our friends on the street and is hosted by Mercy Community Church.

Some typical herbal remedies we prepare for the clinic include a Sanitizing Foot Spritz, Calendula Oil to nourish the skin, Pain Re-Leaf Salve, a Rejuvenating Sugar Scrub, and pounds of dried Calendula Flowers which are decocted each week for the foot soaks.

We are very thankful for the continued service of the Harriet Tubman Foot Clinic, for all of the volunteers who lend their hands to comfort our neighbors’ feet.???

 

Herbalista was proud to serve at the Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference again, providing an herbal first aid station to nurture and support the little village that gathers each fall in celebration of herbal medicine and nature connection.

Offering holistic first aid is a wonderful way to serve and to show people what’s possible.  Our first aid station offers integrative care and is staffed by herbalists, EMT’s, foot workers, and naturopathic doctors! 

This year the Radical Herbalism Gathering took a year off from the main gathering in the field in Shropshire and moved to the city enters, offering three urban gatherings to cultivate radical connections in cities such as London, Manchester, and Bristol.

Lorna facilitated a Solidarity Medicine Making Workshop at the London Gathering, making medicines to share with the Hackney Migrant Center!  The participants crafted herbal tea blends and hot glycerite extracts!

May we continue to put our beliefs to work
And demonstrate our love through action.

Thanks to all the hands and hearts who keep these clinics rolling,
the teachers who inspire us with their knowledge,
and the plants who nurture and heal.

~The Herbalista Crew