Our Impact – 2024

In 2024, we organized 27 mobile clinic events in Santa Rosa, Guerneville and Sonoma Valley at vineyard worksites and family service centers to provide 439 clients with 1,917 direct healthcare services. Botanical Bus mobile clinic events are scheduled during paid shifts at vineyard worksites and on regular Saturdays at trusted family service center community hubs.

At the Botanical Bus clinics, we weave culture into every step of the process. Clients are welcomed with music, herbal tea and traditional foods. Clinical intake is guided by an opening blessing circle and exit surveys accompanied by a tamale meal. In a closing circle, clients and care providers are invited to share gratitude for the opportunity to learn from one another. At our last clinic of the year, two clients, a married couple who attended nine clinics in 2024, brought  five-gallon pails filled to the brim with fragrant black walnuts they had hand-harvested to share. The clients, who identify as local tribal elders, accessed resource navigation services and healthcare for aging, including nutrition, herbalism, acupuncture and other manual therapies to support joint pain, heart health, mood and energy. By sharing their harvest, they brought reciprocity to the radical act of receiving care.
Another return client, who attended 18 Botanical Bus clinics in 2024 and 39 since she first joined us in 2022, sought care for an abscess. As an immigrant woman, she seeks out care with the Botanical Bus because it aligns with her cultural understanding of wellbeing in connection to traditional foods and plant medicines. We provided wound care and internal herbal medicine to support the client’s healing while she navigated stressful changes in her life. We know that emotional health affects the immune system—our bodies' innate ability to manage inflammation and repair tissue—and we took a holistic approach to support her healing. Her abscess healed quickly, and she learned new wound-care strategies alongside self-care practices for her mental health.
In an anonymous exit survey, another client shares:

““Mi vida ha cambiado para mejor y así mejora mi familia. [My life has changed for the better and this is how I can, in turn, better the lives of my family]”.

One of the unique opportunities at the clinic is to care for families together. These consults always feel special because family systems hold so much depth. Patterns are often shared, and healing in community can be powerful. After their mother’s death, two sisters—one of whom has been a volunteer language interpreter with us for over four years—attended the clinic together. They sought support as each navigated grief in her own way. One sister has a disability, and the other became her caregiver after their mother’s passing. These were significant changes for both of them, not just because of their loss but due to the role changes in their lives. Our trusted care supported their lived experience, relationship and individual needs.   In one year of receiving bilingual, bicultural healthcare services at Botanical Bus mobile clinic, 93% of return clients experienced self-affirming, improved health outcomes and 52% of clients without established primary care were referred into regional Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). One Botanical Bus client shares:

“Mi vida regresó desde que vine a estas terapias con muchas ganas de seguir adelante y contenta. Me gustó sentirme acompañada. ¡El convivir sana! [My life has returned since I came to these therapies, with great desire to move forward and be happy. I like feeling accompanied. Coming together heals!]”