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About Appalachia Community Clinic: 

Appalachia Community Clinic (The ACC) is established by a group of local students from Jung Tao School of Chinese Medicine who have come together in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Our aim is to bring holistic health care to our community and to provide care for disaster relief, recovery, and beyond.

We are responding to a need that was not created by the hurricane, but which the disastrous effects of the hurricane revealed more starkly than ever. Rural Appalachia needs access to health care. It needs community spaces. Our communities in these mountains need to grieve, mourn, heal, recover, and rebuild. We can help facilitate that process.

We officially opened our doors (as in tent flap) Monday, October 21st, 2024 in Barnardsville. We put up some signs, lit our propane heaters, and set up a couple walled-in tents behind the mutual aid distribution hub at the Old Fire station across from the post office. In our first week we opened Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11am-2pm. We offered free, community-style acupuncture treatments to the public on a walk-in basis. We offered an ear-acupuncture protocol called NADA that aims to relieve stress and trauma, and promote hope, calm, determination, and healing. We relied on donated supplies and volunteers.

Our question at the beginning of the initiative was, “Is there a need for this kind of service in our community?”

We treated 65 community members in our first 9 hours of clinic.

The answer was a resounding “Yes.”

Meet Our Organizers