UVM Chapter Updates - Most Improved Club of the Year

The UVM MEDLIFE chapter was awarded the Most Improved Club of the Year award on Monday, April 5th. This chapter was started by a few UVM students in the spring of 2008, and has grown substantially since then. The club began with just five members, all of whom traveled together to join a group from the University of Maine on a brigade to Cebadas, Ecuador that spring. The UVM students returned to Burlington awed and inspired by the work they had done for MEDLIFE, and decided to take action on their own campus. The students proposed the club to the student government and gained recognition quickly. The UVM chapter worked hard to hold informational sessions about MEDLIFE and brigades, and began sending more students to Ecuador in their first year of operations. In the last year of UVM MEDLIFE, the membership has risen from just 10 members to over 100 with new students gaining interest all the time. The club has sent students on 6 brigades since its start in 2008, and plans to send more students this coming May and July. This year, for the first time, ten students from UVM MEDLIFE will travel to Yale University to attend the Unite for Sight Conference on April 17-18. The chapter meets weekly to discuss brigades, plan fundraisers, practice speaking Spanish and taking vital signs, or to watch a short film on global health followed by discussion. Meetings are attended by 12-20 members regularly. Students in this chapter are motivated and dedicated to the work MEDLIFE does. Conversations at meetings always revolve around what more can be done to assist the communities we serve, and how students can help. The sky is truly the limit with UVM MEDLIFE members and officers. A true testament to membership commitment is the recent rewriting of the chapter constitution to really meet the goals of the club. Reestablishing chapter goals is helping to put fundraisers and plans for the upcoming year in motion. Officers and members alike in this club are devoted and passionate about what they do.

UVM MEDLIFE President, Cynthia McCormack, will be running in the 114th Boston Marathon on April 19th, for MEDLIFE! Support her by donating to MARATHON FOR MEDLIFE at http://www.medlifeweb.org/donate?user=812.

The UVM chapter plans to hold a Budding Artists Silent Auction on the April 24 MEDLIFE National Fundraising Day. This event will be open to the public and will be held in the downtown Burlington, location to be determined. Pieces will be submitted by student artists in the Burlington area. Proceeds will be shared between MEDLIFE and the submitting artists to support MEDLIFE community projects in Ecuador and Peru, and local artwork in the Burlington community. This is an event not to be missed. More information to come!