Last Friday, OCS hosted the Volunteer Opportunities in Health Care Fair, co-sponsored by The Harvard College Latinos in Health Careers (LiHC), The Harvard College Pre-Veterinary Society (HCPVS), The Harvard Pre-Medical Society (HPS), The Harvard Pre-Dental Society (HPDS), and The Harvard Society of Black Scientists and Engineers (HSBSE). If you missed the fair, don’t worry! You can learn more about the participating organizations (and their opportunities) through the OCS website and Crimson Careers.

Participating Organizations:

Access Health
Trained by Harvard Medical students, volunteers interact with the low-income and homeless, setting up blood pressure screenings at free dinners in Harvard Square. Access Health seeks volunteers to help execute an expansion of service.

Adult Family Care
Adult Family Care (AFC) helps older people and younger people with disabilities who need assistance with daily activities to live independently in a supportive family environment.

Beacon Hospice
Beacon Hospice, Inc. is a community of caregivers dedicated to excellence in end-of-life care for the patient and their families. This is accomplished by respecting patient choice, providing comfort, and promoting dignity.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Brigham and Women’s Medical Career Exploration Volunteer Program (MCEP) gives undergraduates exposure to the hospital environment in order to help them make informed career/educational decisions. The program features a rotation of assignments that build experience and culminates in a letter of recommendation and the opportunity to round with a physician for one day.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital: HIV Vaccine Trials Unit
The Division of Infectious Diseases provides high quality inpatient and outpatient care and consultative services to the BWH patient and health care communities. Its mission is to teach clinical infectious disease; to create educational materials that widely disseminate knowledge of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of infectious diseases; and to develop creative basic biomedical laboratory, patient-oriented, or population-oriented research that has the potential to change approaches to infectious and infection-related diseases.

Clinton Health Access Initiative
The Clinton Health Access Initiative is a global health organization committed to strengthening integrated health systems around the world and expanding access to care and treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other illnesses.

Crimson Care Collaborative
CCC is a student-faculty collaborative practice. Medical students (precepted by faculty members) take care of patients at student-administered evening clinics. There are currently five CCC sites: Mass General Hospital, Internal Medicine Associates (IMA); Mass General Hospital, Chelsea; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC); Cambridge Health Alliance; and Mass General Hospital, Revere (Pediatrics).

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
The mission of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is to provide expert, compassionate care to children and adults with cancer while advancing the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, cure, and prevention of cancer and related diseases. The Institute also provides training for new generations of physicians and scientists, designs programs that promote public health—particularly among high-risk and underserved populations—and disseminates innovative patient therapies.

Fenway Health
The mission of Fenway Health is to enhance the well-being of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community—and all people—through access to the highest quality health care, education, research, and advocacy.

Harvard College Alzheimer’s Buddies Program
HCAB pairs students with Alzheimer’s buddies—people with AD in need of social interaction—so that they may form meaningful relationships over the course of a semester or longer. Students travel as a group to meet their buddies one-on-one for an hour every week at Hebrew SeniorLife Rehabilitation Center in Roslindale.

Harvard MIHNUET
MIHNUET is a volunteer music organization in which students take regular trips to nursing homes and hospitals to perform music for the residents.
Harvard Premedical Society Hospital Volunteering Program
The Hospital Volunteering Program offers hospital volunteering opportunities through Cambridge Health Alliance to Harvard undergraduates.

Kidney Disease Screening and Awareness Program
KDSAP provides free health screenings in underserved communities, organizes health education talks, and establishes a hierarchical mentorship between nephrologists and undergraduate students through seminar events and clinical shadowing.

Kitty Connection
Kitty Connection is dedicated to rescuing abandoned, abused, and unwanted cats and dogs; most pets are fostered through volunteers in the organization. Through TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release) programs, Kitty Connection works to reduce feral cat overpopulation in local communities—while offering a low-cost spay/neuter program for pet owners.

KSNAP: Kids with Special Needs Achievement Program
PBHA’s Kids with Special Needs Achievement Program (KSNAP) works every Friday afternoon to plan fun and educational classroom activities for 4th and 5th grade special education students in Chinatown and South Boston, including field trips every semester.

Latin American Health Institute
The Latin American Health Institute is a community-based professional organization that promotes the health of the community—its institutions, families, and individuals—through effective interventions that are culturally competent and technologically appropriate.

PBHA’s Pets as Therapy
PBHA’s Pets as Therapy is dedicated to serving the elderly residents of the Cambridge Rehabilitation and Nursing Center (CRNC). Once a week, volunteers bring dogs from the Harvard Square area to visit CRNC residents, providing companionship and therapeutic time with the animals. As the program expands, additional activities will include art and exercise classes.

Peer Health Exchange
PHE recruits, selects, and trains college students to teach high school students a comprehensive health curriculum consisting of twelve standardized health workshops on topics ranging from decision-making and sexual health to substance abuse and nutrition.

Reach Out and Read
Launched at Boston Medical Center over 20 years ago, Reach Out and Read is in place at over 250 pediatric practices in Massachusetts and over 4,500 nationwide; the program incorporates anticipatory literacy guidance into the well-child visit, giving books to children and advice to parents about the importance of reading.

Somerville-Cambridge Elder Services
Somerville-Cambridge Elder Services promotes the rights of all individuals to live with dignity and in the setting of their choice by offering older people and people with disabilities the information, services, and support needed to make choices which enhance health, well-being, and independence.

Team HBV at Harvard College
Team HBV engages students to prevent and control hepatitis B in the Boston community. Through targeted educational outreach, Team HBV dispels stigma and alerts at-risk people to opportunities for prevention; through advocacy, students raise awareness among members of the public, policy-makers, and future leaders; and through community partnerships, Team HBV promotes and facilitates prevention activities, such as accessible hepatitis B screenings and vaccinations.