Transcribed Interview: Danielle Boyden

Clarissa: So, what made you interested enough to join MEDLIFE?

Danielle: Um, I actually, was just looking for a service opportunity to go out to a different country. Like the mobile medical clinic trips. I got involved in that and I started to really like the people I was with, they were all MEDLIFE students. And um, so I got involved with them and went to the meetings and found that it was a place where I could really kind of talk about pre-health things in a non-stressful environment and I liked that. People were so nice and told me a lot about different things that I could get involved with in FSU and then I decided to run for exec. and I was the local director and now I’m the president. So yeah, it started with just one service trip my sophomore year. I signed up super late and I didn’t know anyone and didn’t go to the other meetings but ended up falling in love with it.

Clarissa: What would you tell other people who were interested in the group?

Danielle: Interested in joining it?

Clarissa: Right.

Danielle: Okay, I’d say that I love MEDLIFE because generally, well, there’s a couple reasons, but it focuses on long distance, international, as well as here in Tallahassee. We do a lot of outreach with the Kearney Center and Hope Community and that serves the Tallahassee community and then we also do like Peru, Ecuador, Tanzania. And also, just how genuine it is. We were started by Nick, a doctor in his residency that just saw a need. So, it’s not a big profit organization or anything. This guy just started it in his basement. So, kids joined on and were like “oh my god, yeah. This is an awesome cause.” And we focus on, like, not just the first week we are there. Not just taking pictures. The involvement fee we do pay goes towards to, if we find, a patient that needs surgery, or any type of medical care; that money goes towards getting him that care. We put up their family, we put them up in like housing. We get them that surgery or whatever care they need and then we see it through to the end. We always get a backstory, and like what happens. And, also, the fundraisers that we do goes towards those surgeries and building houses for kids who lost their parents. It focuses on a lot more than just that one week that we are there and with a single population, which I think is cool.

Clarissa: Does your organization have any core beliefs, or mantras, mottos that you guys live by?

Danielle: Yeah, so MEDLIFE actually stands for Medicine, Education, Development for Low-Income Families Everywhere, so we just try and incorporate that in everything that we do. Every trip, every local outreach. It’s always: “how can we incorporate medicine, education, and then development into the community.

Clarissa: Why did you choose to pursue the role that you have in MEDLIFE?

Danielle: I originally pursued the role of local director because the local outreach was something that I really enjoyed doing. I signed up for a lot of volunteering, especially at the Kearney Center. It was something that I really wanted to get involved more with. And when the time came next year, I kind of wanted to do local director again because I loved it but my, one of the girls I work with, was a really good fit and she had gotten really involved and I could see she really was trying. So, the role for president came up and uh, I don’t know, have the opportunity to lead my favorite club on campus. It’s just something that I put countless hours and work, and like every day there’s something I’m doing for it. Every single day. And I don’t mind doing it, genuinely, because if that is what it takes to make the club keep going and thriving and for everyone to have the same opportunities that I had. I was willing to put in the work.

Clarissa: So, growing up, or in high school, did you witness low-income families who had issues but weren’t getting the help they needed?

Danielle: I did a little bit. When I was in high school, I used to volunteer a lot, like every other day at the Kimberly Home. In my hometown, it’s like a resource house for young mothers, like teenage mothers, who came up on hard times and now they have these babies and they don’t know what to do. I worked in the daycare and I would help out in the thrift shop and sell things to help them find, like affordable housing and things. So, I got to witness that, like every other day and that really did sit close to my heart and that’s why I think I was really inclined. Because I do love helping out other countries but I do think our local communities could always benefit from the help that we can give back.

Clarissa: Earlier, you were talking about mobile clinics. Can you tell me a little more about those?

Danielle: Yeah, so what we do is go, for a week, to places like Peru, Tanzania, Moshi, Ecuador and we will set up three or four clinic days and set up a makeshift clinic, like we literally make it out of bedsheets and we go into the school and put down all the sheets and hire local doctors and stay at the local hospitals, and set them up there. We have a dentist or two, a gynecologist, a psychiatrist, a toothbrush station for little kids, and we also have an education center. Anything the community needs, we cater it to them. We’ll go to those and also do a developmental day where we build a staircase, or I personally built a bathroom. But a lot of times we will build a staircase because if a town has a stair case, it registers them as a town and all the people in the town can get welfare. And it’s not like they can’t do it themselves at all, it just like we are going to such a small town and they don’t have the people. They just need people who are willing to help, you know. And kids who know about the medical field come and treat them. We were really close with MEDLIFE, like our headquarters are actually in Peru. We have like representatives come into each town and telling us what they would like the volunteers to work on. We are actually renaming them into service learning trips. So, it’s cool. You go for like a week and you get to meet a lot of people and still stay in contact with the people who work for MEDLIFE.

Clarissa: Is there a specific event that has stuck close to your heart? Like helping a specific family?

Danielle: I’m trying to pick, there has been quite a few memories that I have. Every time I go to the community center I really enjoy it. It’s the homeless population, they’re awesome, just so funny. It’s awesome to be involved in. But, there was this little girl, named Nicole, who I remember helping in a mobile clinic and she was great too. They were very grateful to us for coming in and helping. We had this one fundraiser when I first started, like my second semester of MEDLIFE and I really just, it just touched my heart because our fundraisers that we do, we don’t do it for our club. Like one semester we will fundraise for Peru, and another getting clean water and pipes because they don’t live in places with clean water. We also fundraised for one of our member’s brother’s, his name is Gus and he had a brain tumor. All the money that we fundraised was given to them as a donation. It was just nice to help her and her family, to fill one of our member’s needs and help them when they needed it the most. He’s okay now. We got an update. It went well.