Students are invited to join a developing collaboration between the Worcester Earn A Bike and the Family Health Center of Worcester and UMass Chan Medical students. Worcester Earn A Bike is an organization in Main South Worcester whose mission is "to promote and carry out education programs to facilitate bicycle use, repair and rehabilitation for the improved health and well-being of the community, to teach fun, affordable bike repair to neighborhood youth and community members by providing tools, instruction, and repairable bikes and parts". Community participants can earn a free bike by simply learning how to repair the bike with the tools and education at the Earn a Bike workshop.
The Family Health Center of Worcester is a federally qualified health center neighboring the Worcester Earn A Bike. The FHCW recognizes the importance of skill building, environmental justice and access to resources such as safe exercise and transportation in improving individual and community health.
Melanie Gnazzo, MD is a family physician. She has a primary care patient panel at the Family Health Center of Worcester and is an Assistant Professor at UMass Chan Medical School. In that role, she is a co-lead of the Social Inequity Advocacy and Justice Pathway.
UMass Chan Medical Students could be involved in smaller roles (such as volunteering at the workshop or at already scheduled events) or larger roles (such as organizing a community bike fair to educate safe biking skills, obtaining funding for safety items such as helmets and reflectors, design outreach via local clinical offices, and more).
The student involvement could be informal and occasional, or it could be designed as a quality improvement project or Pathways Longitudinal Project. First year medical students could apply for a summer program stipend for this community health project. As a faculty mentor Dr. Gnazzo can guide this process.