Little Manila Rising offers free health services to south Stockton residents at one-day clinic

It was a day dedicated to helping Stockton residents get their healthcare needs met.

Free health services and screenings, as well as COVID-19 vaccines and flu shots, were offered at the Asian Health and Healing Clinic hosted by Little Manila Rising at the Trinity Presbyterian Church on Sunday.

The clinic was the third of its kind.

Anthony Serna of Stockton said he went to the clinic to get his COVID-19 booster shot.

"It was a good experience. Very nice people," Serna said. "They hooked it up."

Hannah Divino, holistic health director of Little Manila Rising, said the clinic saw a bigger turnout than expected. According to Divino, there was about 150 attendees, doubling the total number of attendees in November 2021.

"We were using text banking and all of our different programs with Little Manila Rising were outreaching so they were getting into contact with masses of people ... that's a big part of the reason for the turnout," Divino said.

In addition to free health services, free groceries and winter clothes were also given away. Divino said it was important to bring these resources to south Stockton, a community which has traditionally gone underserved.

"South Stockton doesn't have a health clinic in the area and that's something we want to build in the near future. This is just the beginning," Divino said. "I know this is something small, but it's part of a larger vision to eradicate a lot of health barriers that we see in south Stockton, including linguistic barriers and financial barriers."

Acupuncture, massage therapy, reiki, sound healing and yoga were offered as methods of holistic healing. Experts were also on hand to provide health education. Diabetes and nutrition, asthma, COVID-19, health insurance and mental health were a few of the topics covered.

"We're making sure that we're addressing the social determinants of health, addressing both physical and mental health disparities, because mental health is physical health," Divino said. "A lot of mental health illnesses and symptoms manifest into diabetes, hypertension or heart disease. There's a lot of linkage between those two."

Daisha Alexander, a holistic wellness coordinator, said she recently joined Little Manila Rising and helped organize the clinic.

"Seeing how many people from the community showed up and how we were able to offer services that are not regularly offered in the community was really rewarding," Alexander said.

The Asian Health and Healing Clinic was in partnership with Blue Shield of California, Community Medical Centers, the Emergency Food Bank, Empowering Marginalized Asian Communities, Kaiser Permanente, San Joaquin Health Centers, and San Joaquin County Public Health Services.

Record reporter Hannah Workman covers news in Stockton and San Joaquin County. She can be reached at hworkman@recordnet.com or on Twitter @byhannahworkman. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow. 

This article originally appeared on The Record: free health services brought to south stockton