Grace Miu: With 91.9 KVCR News, I’m Grace Miu. As a current Riverside resident I stumbled upon the Riverside Free Clinic located at the First Congregational church in downtown Riverside. The Riverside Free clinic is an non-profit clinic that offers many free healthcare services including, but not limited to, medical, pharmacy, and dental. We have two amazing volunteers from the Riverside Free Clinic here today to talk about their experiences at the clinic and what a day in the life schedule would look like. So let's hear what they have to say!
Kianna Le: Hi, my name is Kianna. So I have actually been involved with RFC for 2 quarters now, and I got involved with RFC because I wanted to find ways to serve my community, my local community. So I am actually involved in the nutrition committee. We are a committee that is dedicated to providing nutrition counseling in addition to healthy meal options for our patients. We often teach patients how to include a variety of nutritious diets into their daily life. For example, recently we were educating patients on how to incorporate a high protein diet into their daily meals. Every clinic we also make healthy snacks and meals, just to give them ideas on what they can make. Typically when I arrive at the clinic, each clinic lasts six hours. So every clinic we do a rotation between committee members to create a healthy snack. Recently, most recently last week, I made vegan chocolate chip cookies that were low carb. We used almond flour, also high in protein with almond butter. And stevia as a sugar substitute for many of our patients who are diabetic. We often alternate and we like to provide recipes for the patients if they are interested in the recipe and they would like it after trying a sample, they can also try to recreate it at home. And afterwards we also provide food boxes. Probably my favorite memory was two clinics ago when we had a cooking demonstration to showcase patients you know how to make healthy, easy meals at a low cost too. Because for a lot of our patients, the financial aspect of getting their meals is a huge one that often determines how they can get access to food in general. So we showcase to patients how to use the canned goods and dried goods that were provided in the food boxes that we were giving out, to make healthy nutritious meals. Just being able to see the camaraderie of all the volunteers — med students, nursing students, and pharmacy students — working together to serve the Riverside community as a whole, I feel grateful to be a part of RFC and I really enjoy every clinic.
William Nguyen: Hi, my name is William Nguyen. I am an undergrad student. So I work specifically with the department of Dentistry, and we just offer treatments revolving around oral health and prevention, including: extractions, cleanings, and fillings. If there is a certain case that we cannot carry out at the clinic, we also refer to low-cost community dental clinics, where those certain cases can be done. Part of RFC we work with dental and faculty from Western U College of Dental Medicine. We work on a first come first basis, and usually treat around eight to twelve patients each clinic. We begin triaging and taking vitals so that by the time our dental students come, we can begin x-rays or treatment. Then we would begin treatment for every patient we take in. And then after completing the treatments for the day, we begin cleaning up and packing up for the day around nine-thirty to ten. So at Riverside Free Clinic, there are pre-dental students from UCR and then dental students and faculty from Western U. So the dental students are the main people who take care of the treatments. And the pre-dental students are there to shadow and assist alongside the dental students. And Kelli and I, we are in charge of making sure the pre-dentals stay on top of it, and we make sure to communicate with RFC. Again, we are the bridge between RFC and UCR. Being surrounded by the type of care our dental students offer to every patient, it really reminds me of why I want to pursue dentistry in the first place. Which is: giving back to the community, focusing on oral health and prevention. And just, seeing a patient come in with pain and discomfort, and leaving with a smile on their face, there’s really no price tag to that.
Grace Miu: In conclusion, the Riverside Free Clinic provides medical, dental, and pharmacy services along with counseling and nutrition. For more information, go to riversidefreeclinic.com or @ucrrfc on instagram. From KVCR News, I’m Grace Miu.
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Grace Miu is an honors student at UC Riverside, majoring in Business. In the Winter 2025 quarter she created this radio feature for the POSC 190 "Local Public Radio Storytelling with 91.9 KVCR News" class.