Would you like to see a free Seventh-day Adventist medical clinic in your town?
Now is your chance.
Your Best Pathway to Health — the Adventist organization that has brought more than $77 million in free services to more than 20,000 patients in five U.S. cities — will offer a one-day seminar on how to organize a free clinic at its next free clinic in July.
All volunteers at the free clinic in Beckley, West Virginia, are invited to attend the training on Sunday, July 17.
“We encourage anyone interested in organizing a community-based Pathway to Health clinic to volunteer in Beckley and to attend the training provided,” Ken Denslow, assistant to the president of the Adventist Church’s North American Division, said in a statement.
Pathway to Health, which held its largest mega-clinic in April, treating 8,538 patients over three days in Los Angeles, is now preparing for its first small-town clinic. It hopes to provide a wide range of medical, dental, and vision services to 1,500 people from July 13 to 15 at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center in Beckley, a town of 17,600 people located a five-hour drive southwest of Washington D.C.
Leaders of the North American Division, who have cooperated with Pathway to Health and ASI at previous mega-clinics, have indicated that they are especially excited about the Beckley event and the first-time training for volunteers.
“In addition to the fact that Beckley offers East Coast residents their first chance to volunteer closer to home, of significance is the training being offered at the West Virginia event,” Julio C. Muñoz, the division’s associate communication director, said in a statement e-mailed to Adventist congregations across North America. “Organizers are offering all attending volunteers educational components that will allow local communities to organize smaller Pathway to Health events around the country.”
Read how a Sabbath School class is the brainchild behind the Beckley free clinic
Pathway to Health, meanwhile, renewed its own call for volunteers — and donations — on its Facebook page on Monday. In particular, the clinic needs more dentists, optometrists, and medical specialists, in particular gynecologists, cardiologists, pulmonologists, and radiologists, it said.
In another development, Pathway to Health president Lela Lewis said she was delighted that the authorities were providing unprecedented support to the Beckley event. She said the state medical board, the governor’s office, and many other state officials were seeking out Pathway to Health organizers and assisting with needed licenses, certifications, registrations, or temporary permits to practice at the event.
“We have never received the reception that we are receiving from the state capital as we are in West Virginia,” Lewis said. “God has something really big planned. Please continue to pray and assist in any way you can for more dentists and optometrists and specialists, including gynecologists in particular.”
