I have chosen to partner with and raise awareness and funds for Remote Area Medical – RAM® for my hike. RAM is a major nonprofit provider of free, high quality health care for people and pets in need in Appalachia, across the US and internationally. They help ensure that the 30+ million uninsured or underinsured Americans get the care they need. Their volunteer corps of 170,000+ health professionals have treated more than 860,000 people to date. Learn more about RAM in this video.
At RAM’s pop-up clinics, licensed volunteers treat patients just as they would at a regular doctor’s visit. Most RAM clinics are one or two days. They usually open at 6:00 a.m. and stay open as long as possible, depending on the number of volunteer practitioners available. Generally around 3:00 a.m. on each clinic day, RAM distributes patient entrance numbers. And, many patients arrive by midnight or earlier to ensure they receive a number. Patients progress through a health screening, registration, and triage, and then receive either vision and medical or dental and medical services (see pictures below).
Where does your money go? RAM has a superb Charity Navigator rating (97/100), so you can be sure your donation makes a difference. On average, it costs RAM $20,150 per clinic day and $82 per patient visit. In past years, communities requested almost twice as many clinics as RAM was able to provide.
How can you support RAM’s high-impact work? Give whatever you can and I will match the total donations up to $2500. A donation of just $.01 for every mile I will walk adds up to a $22 pledge. Two pennies per mile is $44…and so on. Please give directly to RAM thru this link. If you enter #RewiredRon in the comments box, RAM can add up the total donations so I can match them to double your impact! If you prefer to mail your contribution, please send it to: Remote Area Medical, 2200 Stock Creek Blvd., Rockford, TN 37853 and put #RewiredRon on the comments line.
Thank you!
