Don’t Stop Believing: Why CAP Supports POCA’s Membership Drive

At the Community Acupuncture Project in West Seattle, we can’t, don’t and won’t  stop believing in POCA! Since our inception in 2009, we’ve been a part of the Community Acupuncture Network (CAN) which grew into our national coop, the People’s Organization of Community Acupuncture (POCA).

Every year we participate in POCA’s membership drives and enthusiastically share the benefits of our national coop with our patients. Patients, who also LOVE POCA! We have a community acupuncture map in our waiting area and neighbors are known to stop by the clinic, simply to grab a business card for another clinic across the country, to share with their friends and family in other states. We frequently give patients traveling, visiting and moving, the Locate-A-Clinic link to POCA’s web site, and people are so grateful to learn of the community acupuncture movement in states across the country, knowing that access to affordable acupuncture will continue when they leave Seattle.

What do we love about POCA and why do we participate in the Membership Drives? We believe in the value of growing our strength and power, on a national level, through our sociocratic structure, and by developing patient, punk, organizational and clinic memberships. We love that POCA is a resource for punks new to the community acupuncture world as well as seasoned clinic owners and staff. We appreciate that POCA collects best practices, advice, and documents and shares these resources so openly. Educational resources available on POCA TV, CEUS, webinars, classes and POCAfest gatherings about community acupuncture, allow people all over the world to access crucial information, for a reasonable fee.

CAP punk, Cynthia Gorsuch says, “before I found POCA, it seemed like the way to succeed as an acupuncturist was to hope you hitched your wagon to the “right” mentor/style of acupuncture/business class and hope to goodness it worked. Then continue to hope that you could find a teacher or mentor willing to share their secrets to success, knowing that they might view you as competition and decide to withhold key details. Finding POCA for me, meant finding a community of other acupuncturists, passionate about making this amazing medicine affordable and accessible, and also really interested in making sure everyone who wants to practice community acupuncture in their community can succeed.”

At CAP, we love POCA, and we benefit from all the other clinics, patients, volunteers and punks participating in our membership drives and creating financial possibilities for POCA Tech and our micro-loans program.  We are stronger because of POCA’s leadership circles and democractic governance structures. We are grateful to our patients who continue to participate in and support the POCA membership drive and our national coop. We love being part of this community, this movement and this drive for increasing access to affordable healing. Don’t stop believing in collective power!

By Sonja Sivesind of the Community Acupuncture Project in West Seattle

Author: sivesind