Guests urged to ‘rediscover your inner child’
Kelly Ranieli, executive director of Volunteers in Medicine, shows off plans for a proposed expansion that would lead to more examination rooms, a teaching kitchen and other improvements at the VIM location on North Pennsylvania Boulevard in Wilkes-Barre.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
“We’ll have clowns, cotton candy, popcorn,” Kelly Ranieli said.
And while guests don’t have to wear costumes to the upcoming gala fundraiser, she added, “I know some people are planning their circus outfits.”
If you decide to support the Wilkes-Barre-based Volunteers in Medicine clinic by attending “The Greatest Show on Earth” fundraiser on June 13 “under the Big Top at The Greens at Irem Clubhouse,” you’ll find a nostalgic theme reminiscent of an old-time circus.
And, who knows? Maybe some guests will add to the atmosphere by dressing like an aerialist or a strongman, a ringmaster or a human cannonball.
Also on hand will be the Beatles tribute band Strawberry Fields, featuring former members of Broadway’s Beatlemania. They will provide music that links Paul McCartney’s interest in London’s avant-garde scene with the world of oohs and aahs and three-ringed spectacles.
“We’re very excited,” said Ranieli, who is executive director of Volunteers in Medicine.
She’s enthusiastic, not just about the upcoming fundraiser, but about plans to expand the Volunteers in Medicine clinic, where medical, dental and behavioral care is provided to the working poor.
“We want to renovate our second floor,” she said, explaining there is a need for additional exam rooms and meeting space. The volunteers also dream of having a free grocery and a kitchen where classes would teach people how to cook healthy meals.
“It’s a hand up, not a handout. They just want to be healthy so they can keep working,” Ranieli said of the patients, noting Volunteers in Medicine serves people who don’t have health insurance but who earn too much to be eligible for Medicaid.
Leading a reporter on a short tour of the facility on a recent weekday, she said, “We had three volunteer nurses this morning and another will come in the afternoon.”
The facility keeps electronic medical records, she added, which is “innovative for a free clinic.”
“Some pallets of food were delivered,” she said, opening a bag to reveal apples, onions and carrots that came from the non-profit Food Dignity organization. “We also get deliveries from the Weinberg Food Bank,” she said, explaining that patients can leave the clinic carrying a bag of nutritious food.
Volunteer physicians, dentists, dietitians and physical therapists visit the clinic, located at 190 North Pennsylvania Blvd. in Wilkes-Barre, where they offer care in diverse specialties. In some cases, the patients are referred to other sites, perhaps for an EKG or a mammogram.
“The hospitals understand that we’re keeping the uninsured out of their emergency rooms,” Ranieli said, explaining Luzerne County has an estimated 30,000 people without health insurance and an estimated 90,000 without dental insurance.
Each of those numbers reflects real people, Ranieli said, mentioning “a young lady who was happy about the pandemic” because it gave her an excuse to wear a mask, which meant no one would see that her teeth were in bad shape.
Thanks to a set of dentures from the Volunteers in Medicine, a photograph showed the patient smiling confidently with her new teeth.
In another poignant anecdote, Ranieli said, clinic volunteers heard of a child who had to share a toothbrush with a sibling because a second toothbrush wasn’t available at their home.
Fortunately, Volunteers in Medicine’s Healthy Smiles Program sends volunteers to schools, day care centers and summer camps where they distribute hundreds of tooth brushes and talk about the right way to brush your teeth — trying to stave off future dental problems.
“We’re not federally funded,” Ranieli said. “And all our services are free. Our money comes from donations, grants and proceeds of special events.”
If you’d like to attend the $175-per-person gala, tickets are available through the web site vimwb.org/. There also are opportunities to support the clinic at Sponsorship Levels ranging from $250 at the Jester level to $15,000 at the Ringmaster level. More information also is available at 570-970-2864.
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