About Us

Our Mission

Medspire Health’s mission is to inspire and instill hope in communities affected by disaster by providing free accessible non-emergent medical services through a mobile clinic. To build collaborative community partnerships to promote whole body wellness and healing.

Our Vision

Mobile Community Health Organization

A free, mobile medical clinic that works closely in collaboration with community members and local agencies to provide non-emergency medical care as well as emotional wellness support and health education so that we may strengthen one another as we rebuild and re-establish our communities after a disaster.

Our History

On November 8th our lives were forever changed when a small handful of us walked into an overwhelmed, understaffed evacuation shelter in Chico. Of the 38,000 people displaced in a matter of hours by the massive, destructive fire, 250 of the most vulnerable and medically fragile landed here, in the cavernous gym of the East Avenue Church in Chico. The church opened its doors to more than 20 nursing home patients, as well as entire multi-generational families, young children and babies, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and dozens of elderly and disabled evacuees. The majority of those sheltered there had chronic health conditions and were reliant on medical equipment such as walkers, wheelchairs and CPAP/BiPAP machines they had to leave behind. All were terrified and traumatized by their ordeal, many barely escaped with their lives. These were people who started with little, and now had lost everything.

When we first walked into the shelter, the suffering and chaos simply took our breath away. It was difficult to even know where to begin. There was no government disaster assistance yet in place; no FEMA, CalMAT, National Guard or Red Cross, just a small group of us doing whatever we could during those first few long days that turned into nearly seven weeks.

We evolved into a fully functional disaster medical team, providing around the clock care to over 200 evacuees and in the course of the seven weeks, we formed life long, deep friendships with both evacuees and other volunteers. As the shelter announced its plans to close in mid December, we turned to one another with the realization the the true crisis was only just beginning; there was no medical infrastructure to serve the ridge, no hospital, no ER, no urgent care and no clinics. We knew we needed to find a way to help our community rebuild by continuing to provide free medical care. Thus the idea of Medspire Health, a free mobile medical clinic to serve the fire devastated areas was born.