Launched in 2015, we created the Atlanta Herb Cart to provide free, herbal care to communities in need, serving at a variety of locations, such as city parks, soup kitchens, and community centers.
The Herb Cart was also a Training Program that served as a unique learning opportunity for emerging herbalists. It was constructed to provide a safe and supportive vessel for folks to expand their clinical potential while serving our community high-quality herbs.
As with all of our projects, we aim to free our work from the confines of clinical + retail walls to bring herbalism out of the shadows and directly into the hands of the people.
The Herbalista Herb Cart offered pop-up clinics and herbal care at a variety of locations around Atlanta for 7 years. We served alongside a variety of partners such as Food not Bombs, the Open Door Community, Mercy Community Church, South Bend Commons and Atlanta Resistance Medics.
In 2022, after 7 years of service, training over 50 herbalists, and sharing gallons of herbal medicine on the Atlanta streets, our sweet lil’ Cart moved to a new home. It has joined the Fleur + Forage Free Clinic, continuing to serve Atlanta and to train herbalists in the art of mobile medicine. Viva la Herb Cart!
Create a Cart!
We hope that our Herb Cart experiences (creating, launching and serving for those many years) can serve as an example of what a community can do when it comes together in love of the people and the herbs. This page is filled with the resources we found useful (including the most recent edition of our Herb Cart Service Manual) and we hope will help folks create mobile herb clinics of their own.
Herb Cart Service Manual
The Herb Cart Service Manual
A Guide to Starting a Mobile Herb Clinic
The Herb Cart Manual is a guide to our clinical services and is used as the training curriculum for the Herb Cart Crew. This manual contains over 65 pages of information regarding how we set-up and service; how we stock the cart; examples of forms we use to track patient care and herbal inventory; basic first aid reference material; and oh-so-much-more.
This is the first “Post-Covid” edition and reflects the changes we made so we could continue to serve our community safely and to the best of our abilities. We’ve also added several new sections on legalities, money matters, and all that jazz.
Herb Cart Trainings
We held trainings one to two times a year, with between 6 and 8 herbalists per training. Over the years we trained 9 crews with over 50 herbalists participating in the Program. Typical trainings were held over a weekend, with a Friday night orientation and then a full Saturday and Sunday workshop. Once a crew had gone through a training, they then would continue their training by volunteering at our monthly pop-up clinics.
Using the Herb Cart Service Manual as our guide (see below), we aimed for this training to provide the confidence and know-how for folks to eventually start up clinics and community health projects of their own. Previous members of the Herb Cart Crew have gone on to create free foot care clinics, herbal clinics, first aid stations and more.
Joining the Crew
Here were the steps to join the Herb Cart Crew…
- Download the application for the next Herb Cart Training (you can find an example of what our application looked like here)
- Complete an Herb Cart Training.
- Fulfill all Herb Cart Requirements as described below.
Once you had completed the process, we welcomed folks to sign-up and serve at the various pop-up clinics we scheduled throughout the year. In the initial sessions with us, new crew members would mainly observe and assist the more experienced Herb Carters, taking on more and more responsibility as they felt comfortable.
Herb Cart Application (Example)
Here is a link to what our application for joining the Herb Cart Crew typically looked like.
Program Requirements:
- Have a solid foundation in herbal medicine acquired through either program study, apprenticeship, or rigorous self-study. We use a broad range of remedies on the cart. Please see the Herb Cart Service Manual on the Resources page to see an example of the Materia Medica we utilize. You must be familiar with this range of herbs and their safety requirements.
- CPR and First Aid Certified within the last 2 years. This can be through any number of organizations, such as the Red Cross, American Heart Association, etc. This must be completed prior to attending an Herb Cart Weekend Training Session.
- Preferably, it is recommended one also attend a Wilderness First Aid or Wilderness First Responder course like those offered by Landmark Learning and NOLS.
- Attend an Herb Cart Weekend Training Session (Herbal First Aid, Herb Cart Protocol, etc.) Each training session is limited to between 6 and 8 participants.
- Recommended: volunteer at the Harriet Tubman Foot Care Clinic. Send an email to opendoorfootclinic@gmail.com
- Demonstrate dedication to learning about and practicing anti-oppressive healthcare. Applicants will be provided with a list of videos and reading assignments to complete before our training weekend.
- Demonstrate herbal competence, compassion & pragmatism as a health worker. Please note, participation in the program is at the discretion of the Herbalista Crew.
- To maintain active volunteer status you must demonstrate a continued commitment to your craft and community healthcare.
Gallery
Herbalista Herb Cart Trainings
2022
February 25th – 27th, 2022 [SOLD OUT]
Friday evening 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Saturday from 10am – 5pm
Sunday from 10am – 5pm
Location: Herbalista Headquarters, Atlanta, GA
2021
April 23rd – 25th, 2021 [SOLD OUT]
Friday evening 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Saturday from 10am – 5pm
Sunday from 10am – 5pm
Location: Herbalista Headquarters, Atlanta, GA
2020
January 31st – February 2nd, 2020 [SOLD OUT]
Friday evening 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Saturday from 10am – 5pm
Sunday from 10am – 5pm
Location: Herbalista Headquarters, Atlanta, GA
2018
January 26th – 28th, 2018 [SOLD OUT]
Friday evening 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Saturday from 10am – 5pm
Sunday from 10am – 5pm
Location: Herbalista Headquarters, Atlanta, GA
2017
January 27-29, 2017 [SOLD OUT]
Friday evening 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Saturday from 10am – 5pm
Sunday from 10am – 5pm
Location: Herbalista Headquarters, Atlanta, GA
2016
March 4-6, 2016 [SOLD OUT]
Friday evening 7:00pm – 9:30pm
Saturday from 10am – 5pm
Sunday from 10am – 5pm
Location: Herbalista Headquarters, Atlanta, GA
January 8-10, 2016 [SOLD OUT]
Friday evening 7:00pm – 9:30pm
Saturday from 10am – 5pm
Sunday from 10am – 5pm
Location: Herbalista Headquarters, Atlanta, GA
2015
February 20-22, 2015 [SOLD OUT]
Friday evening 7:00pm – 9:30pm
Saturday from 10am – 5pm
Sunday from 10am – 5pm
Location: Herbalista Headquarters, Atlanta, GA
January 9-11, 2015 [SOLD OUT]
Friday evening 7:00pm – 9:30pm
Saturday from 10am – 5pm
Sunday from 10am – 5pm
Location: Herbalista Headquarters, Atlanta, GA