People's Organization of Community Acupuncture

Some of you may or may not know that community acupuncture was started in Portland Oregon by Working Class Acupuncture in 2002 as a way to make acupuncture available and affordable to every day people and later as a way to make living wage jobs available to acupuncturists. Working Class started teaching other acupuncturists how to do the same thing through a non-for-profit called Community Acupuncture Network.

A little over 2 years ago I heard about community acupuncture and started doing some research because it made a lot of sense to me. I changed my practice almost over night from charging $70 a treatment, treating one patient at a time on a massage table letting them rest for 20-30 minutes as I was taught in school to treating patients in recliners in a group setting charging $15-40 (patients choose what works for them) where people could rest for as long as they liked. This set up is exactly how I saw acupuncture practiced when I studied in China. What happened was that the office got busier and people got better a whole lot faster. Many people worried about how I would pay my overhead charging so low but that was never a problem either and I don't stay up nights worrying about patients that were getting better but had to stop coming because they just couldn't afford to anymore. I love that now whole families can come get acupuncture together.

Recently the community acupuncture movement, as it has become known, has made strides to become even more inclusive with the formation of the cooperative People's Organization of Community Acupuncture (POCA). Students, Acupuncturists, Community Acupuncture Clinics, patients, and regular old people can get involved in the coop. Now when patients have friends in a city with no affordable acupuncture available they can rally together with POCA to recruit an acupuncturist to set up a community acupuncture clinic. There are lots of other ways to get involved as well. One way is by becoming a volunteer at your local community acupuncture clinic. Volunteers can have many tasks but mostly its the tasks that you are best at and helps to keep community acupuncture sustainable.

NAP recently recruited two awesome volunteers to help out at the front desk because it seems our phone never rings unless we are in the treatment room with patients. This has been a huge benefit for myself and Marguerite to have help so we can better attend to patients. We still have some reception shifts available if you might be interested in helping out. There are several other projects we'd love volunteers helping out with as well.

As a POCA volunteer you get some great perks.
* 3 free treatment cards for your friends and family that can be used at any POCA community acupuncture clinic
* Free treatment on your birthday to be used at any POCA community clinic
* 1 year membership to POCA paid for by NAP
* (and probably the best part) unlimited acupuncture treatments at NAP for as long as you have commited to being a volunteer with us.

If you are interested ask us for an application, we'd love to have you be apart of our growing community!

Sarah Canga-Arguelles LAc

Neighborhood Acupuncture Place (NAP)
230 Florence St
Crystal Lake IL 60014
815.893.9825
www.clnap.com