The Amherst Survival Center is pleased to announce our campaign for a new facility. Read the details about our capital campaign.

Our plan is to create a home that reflects and respects the dignity of the people we serve and the compassion of our community.

Thanks to the generosity of many local friends and neighbors, the ASC Capital Campaign has already raised $2 million toward the $2.5 million target that will make our plans a reality.

If you’ve visited the Center, you know firsthand that we provide a broad range of safety net services in our cramped basement quarters. Unfortunately, the demand for these services continues to grow – up 56% since 2007. Our staff and volunteers do an admirable job managing within these physical constraints, but we’ve long known that in order to provide more efficient services, with the respect and dignity that are hallmarks of the Survival Center, we need more space.

You’ll hear more about the campaign in the coming months as we work to raise the remaining $500,000 for this new construction at 138 Sunderland Road-just up the street from our current home. In the meantime, please contact us if you’d like to learn more about the project.

Monday Free Clinics Are Back!!
Mondays from 12:30-2 pm
with Dr. Paul Berman & Nurse Trish
Thursday nights continue with Dr. Daniel Clapp, 5-6 pm

On Thursday, October 6, the Amherst Survival Center will receive one of the coveted 2011 Amherst-area Chamber of Commerce’s A+ Awards at the annual community dinner! The award is given to “community leaders, organizations and businesses that have worked to make Amherst a better place.” We feel very honored to have been chosen.

ROTARY DONATION: The Rotary Club of Amherst announced that it is awarding the second annual Rotary Club of Amherst Community Grant in the amount of $25,000 to the Amherst Survival Center. The grant money will be used for the building and outfitting the kitchen in the new facility which is due to break ground in September, 2012.

One in 10 Hampshire and Franklin County residents don’t know where their next nutritious meal might be coming from. Click on this link for a great tool from Feeding America to understand more about what’s happening in our own country.

BAKED GOODS AND FRESH PRODUCE, donated by local companies, are distributed Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday at 11 a.m. and again at 1 p.m.

CLOTHING AND HOUSEHOLD GOODS are free to everyone. We also try to accommodate emergency & special requests.

Our FREE MEDICAL CLINIC provides basic medical services on Thursday evenings.

Join millions of Americans to help Stamp Out Hunger on May 14th
without even having to leave your home! (VIDEO!)

On May 14th, just place a bag of non-perishable food next to your mailbox.

Your local letter carrier will pick it up and bring it to local food banks and pantries like the Amherst Survival Center!

Click HERE for more information!

Amherst Survival Center Free Clinic
Welcomes New Physician

The Amherst Survival Center Free Clinic will now hold hours weekly on Mondays from 12-1, in addition to Thursday evenings from 5-6, thanks to the addition of Doctor Robert Abrams of South Hadley to the Center’s volunteer corps of providers.

“Part of being a doctor is trying to help other people,” said Doctor Abrams when he joined the Clinic team, “and this is an opportunity to use my experience to try to do that.”

Dr. Abrams will join Doctor Daniel Clapp and Trisha Smallman, a psychiatric nurse, in providing health services for the region’s most vulnerable residents. Since its founding in 2008, the clinic has served over 400 people, many of them homeless.

The Free Clinic is part of the Survival Center’s Comprehensive Health Initiative, whose goal is to help underserved Pioneer Valley residents access the full scope of health services available. The Initiative brings in partners from other local organizations such as Tapestry Health and Healthcare for the Homeless, who assist with enrollment in state health insurance plans, and the Salvation Army, which provides support for eyeglasses and some other medical needs. In 2009 the Clinic was awarded a competitive grant from the Office of the Attorney General, which has underwritten the cost of prescription medications for hundreds of patients.

The Clinic is always looking for physicians interested in volunteering, and is currently fund-raising for continuing prescription assistance as the 2009 grant comes to an end. For more information, please contact Cheryl Zoll, Executive Director, at 413-549-3968 x207 or at zoll@amherstsurvival.org.