TZU CHI USA JOURNAL

“Our dream came true!” Tsuilin Valenzuela, Director of the Tzu Chi USA Las Vegas Service Center, announced joyfully at the grand opening ceremony on May 21, 2023, for its new Tzu Chi Vision Mobile Clinic, the 11th to join Tzu Chi USA’s fleet.

In 2023, Tzu Chi USA and its Northeast Region marked a medical care milestone since Tzu Chi’s 12th mobile clinic entered service, arriving in New York on November 29. This mobile clinic is equipped for dentistry, thus launching dental care outreach in the New York Metropolitan area.

All but overlooked due to Silicon Valley’s prosperity, the challenges of underprivileged families often go unaddressed. With this, generations of Tzu Chi volunteers have dedicated themselves to serving Northern California’s disadvantaged families with love, respect, and gratitude.

Fresno is an area with vast farms, where a farmworker’s life encompasses moving from place to place in a cycle dictated by crop cultivation and harvesting schedules. Even if Tzu Chi wants to provide free clinic services here, it’s hard to keep up with the agricultural workers’ migration, making mobile healthcare services the ideal way of offering medical care.

Tzu Chi USA’s first Mobile Clinic was put to use in 2000, bringing its services to remote and medically underserved areas. By the end of 2023, 12 active Tzu Chi Mobile Clinics, comprising services like dental and vision care, internal medicine, and cancer screenings, had been deployed in Northern, Central, and Southern California, New York, and Las Vegas.