[MUSIC] This is Day in the Life, part of a series of videos showcasing the amazing diversity of health related jobs. In these interviews, we'll hear a little bit about what a day in the life of a health professional may look like. We will hear examples directly from two thriving community organizations that were founded decades ago by community leaders who stood up and believed that they could do more to address the health and human services needs of their communities. [SOUND]. [MUSIC] My name is Carmen Velasquez, I'm one of the founders of Alivio Medical Center. [MUSIC] My name is Esther Corpus. I'm the chief executive officer for Alivio Medical Center. Alivio Medical Center is a federally qualified health center providing comprehensive care to patients including adult care, pediatrics, prenatal care, including midwifery services, dentistry, optometry, a 340B pharmacy, advocacy for the undocumented, and educational services for the community. >> How it all started was, in around 1989 there was a health summit that Cook County Hospital and the city of Chicago Department of Health began having hearings and the issues, if you look at it, 1989, 2015, they are the same. The rising cost of health care, the undocumented, the services that are provided and languages that people speak. Access to health care is a social justice issue, so this is not just something about. Oh, we need to provide health care services for people. It goes beyond that. It goes beyond, if you do not have comprehensive health well being, then you can't work. You can't go to school. If you go to school, you're not able to concentrate and study. As I looked around our neighborhoods I was indignant that we did not have a Community Health Center in Pilsen or so I decided to do something about that. We did some strategizing. We put down what we wanted. We wanted a comprehensive community health center. We wanted social workers. We wanted councilors, we wanted physicians, and we wanted bilingual staff. We are an immigrant nation and we need to serve our people. We submit a proposal to the Chicago Community Trust, and we we ask for $896,236. And lo and behold, we get the $890,236. We bought land, we built a building, 10,000 square feet and called this Alivio Medical Center. And we opened our doors on January 4th, 1989. If you fast track 2015, we now service over 26,000 patients. There was many people who made this happen. What has kept us vibrant and active in the community is that people trust us. We are a key voice in the advocacy and fighting for the rights of people. Not only healthcare, but what is right. In the same way Rosa Parks said, you know, I have a right to sit in the front of the bus. We say we have a right to be, to exist in this country, to have access to care. [MUSIC] >> Hello, my name is Esther Wong and I am the Executive Director of Chinese American Service League. [MUSIC] >> I'm Bernada Wong commonly known as Bernie. I'm president and founder of Chinese American Service League. A group of us there's ten of us, we use a potluck and every time potluck the same question comes up, how can we help our own community? Many of us, a few of us our social workers, educators, pharmacists in different professions we decided that we will try to set up a a non-profit social service agency. Each one of us pull out $50 from our own pocket and that's, that's about it. But we applied for the nonprofit status and 35 years later, our budget is 13 million. We have a children and education development program which covers a preschool program, a program which is a families and resources center program providing services for zero to five year olds and their families. We have a chef training program which training immigrants so that they can find jobs in the community. We have adult day program, we also have in-home services, we also have social service for the seniors. And our newest program is our housing program which we teach financial education. And we also do housing counseling. >> The word of mouth is very important. So everybody's telling other people if you need help you go to Castle. [MUSIC]
