About Us

Love Thy Neighbor
May we have eyes to see those that are rendered invisible and excluded,
Open arms to reach out and include them,
Healing hands to touch their lives with love,
And in the process, heal ourselves.

Lakeland Volunteers In Medicine is a volunteer-run, free medical clinic for the working uninsured of Lakeland.

• Over 200 community volunteers do virtually all the non-clinical tasks at LVIM.
• Over 200 volunteer doctors, dentists, nurses, physicians' assistants, medical
  assistants and technicians provide patient care. There are only six paid
  employees of the clinic.
• We operate by the support of the community, grants, and United Way.
• Our patients must live in Polk County, have no form of healthcare
  insurance and earn no more than 200% of the federal poverty guidelines, (about $42,396 for a family of four).
• LVIM provides primary medical care, dental, and counseling services.
• LVIM provides free prescription medications from it's own pharmacy, and most patients leave with two or more prescriptions.
• In 2007, our seventh year of operation, we had over 22,000 patient visits.
• Our costs are extremely low because of our volunteer workers.

Lakeland Volunteers In Medicine began as a dream of various community
leaders and organizations in 1999. Led primarily by Watson Clinic physicians and the Watson Clinic Foundation, Lakeland came together to find ways to meet the healthcare challenges that resulted in the dream's becoming a reality in the old John Cox Grammar School on Lakeland Hills Boulevard. LVIM is now an independent non profit organization with its own Board of Directors.

How many working uninsured persons are there in Lakeland? According to the Kaiser Commission, 19% of all Floridians have no form of health insurance, more in Polk County because of the elevated incidence of poverty. In greater Lakeland (the service area of Lakeland Electric), there are 200,000 persons, and we estimate 50,000 of them work but have no health insurance. They cannot afford private insurance, they do not qualify for Medicaid and their healthcare is infrequent and costly to themselves and the community. The working uninsured take time off work when they are sick, they lose work days, they go without
medications, they put off treatment... and when it gets bad, they use the hospital's Emergency Department – care the hospital must write off.

Case Study - Charlotte Harrell

Charlotte Harrell and her husband had been diabetics for a long time, but were not aware of it until they became patients at Lakeland Volunteers in Medicine five years ago. They immediately took a diabetic class to learn how to manage their debilitating disease and soon started feeling better. But that was just the beginning of a journey for Mrs. Harrell. A journey of finding healing… physically, mentally and emotionally. Harrell says, “I didn’t have as much courage when I first came here.”

Just a few months after becoming a patient, Harrell began volunteering at LVIM to help other patients like herself.

“I think this is why my health has improved, by being able to participate with LVIM and being able to work. LVIM helped me physically, but LVIM helped me mentally and emotionally more than anything.”