The Campbell University Community Care Clinic (CUCCC) is hosting one of its biggest fundraisers on Saturday, Nov. 7.
The Fall Festival event is 2-7 p.m. at the medical school. All proceeds from the carnival will directly help support the clinic.
The festival will feature food from local restaurants, fall crafts, games, a magic show and opportunities to win prizes through a raffle and silent auction.
The clinic is funded through myriad grants, but it also largely relies on private donations and other support, such as fundraising events like the festival. The festival and the Mr. CUSOM pageant are the clinic’s two major fundraisers. Mr. CUSOM is a male beauty/talent pageant, in which students compete for the crown. Their score in the contest is, in part, based on collected donations.
The next Mr. CUSOM pageant is Jan. 15.
The CUCCC is the only such clinic in the country run solely by students, with faculty oversight. The mobile and freestanding clinics, part of the Campbell medical school, provide cost-free healthcare to underserved people throughout Eastern North Carolina.
Established in 2014 within the med school, the clinic is composed of physicians and physician assistants who oversee teams of medical, PA and pharmacy students.
The clinic offers free visits, lab work, imaging and medications to people who would not otherwise have access to health care, on campus and via mobile medical units. The clinic sees only uninsured patients, living at or below 250 percent of the U.S. poverty line.
Students, faculty and staff each year travel to countries in Central and South America, as well as Africa, to provide care and offer services such as providing prescriptions and eye glasses.
“Without your support, we can’t go forward,” Dr. Joe Cacioppo, chair of Community and Global Medicine at the medical school, has said.
“These fundraisers fill the gap for us, so that we’re able to provide that care. It really speaks to the heart of the school, and especially to the heart of the students in wanting to serve. That’s why this is so essential. Without this sort of thing, without the money we’re able to generate from these events, we wouldn’t be able to function.
“We depend on it,” Cacioppo says.
Buy tickets here.
