Charlotte Maxwell Clinic (CMC), the Oakland, CA-based nonprofit women’s clinic, is celebrating 30 years of providing free access to compassionate integrative care, including acupuncture, herbs, body work, homeopathy, guided imagery, and nutrition education, for low-income women with cancer in the San Francisco Bay Area. A virtual event, themed “An Evening of Gratitude,” was held October 28. It honored the clinic’s co-founders, celebrated the contributions of long-time volunteers and partners, and shared heartfelt patient testimonials. The hour-long event can be accessed here.
The celebration also culminated the reopening of CMC on October 1st to serve clients in-person again! Since March 2020, Clinic operations had been suspended due to the pandemic. However, we continued to serve our community via Zoom Wellness classes, providing over 400 group sessions in stress management, nutrition advice, exercise classes, meditation, and other healing modalities to support clients in their mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing. During this time, we also provided one-on-one telehealth appointments, making hundreds of calls to check in with clients and find out their needs. We delivered homeopathic medicines and herbal formulas to help them manage the side effects of their cancer treatments, as well as groceries to those most food insecure. We are continuing these services and more as our volunteers return, and we recruit and train new ones.