With only 11 part-time and full-time staff members, the Iowa City Free Medical and Dental Clinic almost exclusively depends on help from volunteers, which they have slowly been able to regain since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations have seen a decrease in volunteer numbers across the nation, dropping seven percent between 2020 and 2021. Only 23 percent of Americans volunteer regularly, according to the Census Bureau and AmeriCorps, the federal agency for national service and volunteerism.

The clinic is a nonprofit organization located at 2440 Towncrest Drive and has provided accessible and affordable health care to Johnson County since 1971.

According to the National Library of Medicine, nonprofit organizations like the Free Medical and Dental Clinic have struggled to regain their once-booming volunteer population since then.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality says patients without medical insurance could pay thousands of dollars out of pocket to receive accessible health care. The free Iowa City clinic provides affordable services for those without health insurance or enough money for medical and dental care.

Jennie Schmidt, the clinic’s executive director, said the clinic was not allowing volunteers to help during the pandemic due to health concerns. But since then, the clinic’s volunteer numbers have been slow to increase again.

“A lot of people just get used to not volunteering or just since we’re so tied to the university where there’s such a transient population, then, there was just a couple of years there where people weren’t hearing about volunteering at the clinic,” Schmidt said.

The clinic’s volunteer population is a mix of University of Iowa students, UIHC interns, and general community members. Because of the changing schedules of UI students, the clinic is constantly searching for more volunteers.

Stanzy Hahn, a volunteer clinic coordinator, said her job can be stressful, as she is constantly working to fill every available space with as many volunteers as possible.

“It’s a lot of frankensteining schedules, it’s a lot of reaching out and saying like, ‘Hey, I know you have an evening availability, is there any chance you’ve got like a couple of hours between class that you could come in?’” Hahn said. “So it’s constantly in flux.”

The clinic has two part-time doctors on staff, so they rely on volunteers for a majority of their dental and medical services such as orthopedics, ophthalmology, dermatology, and more. Schmidt said the clinic’s entire prenatal and postpartum program is 100 percent volunteer-based.

Hahn said when the clinic is not able to fill extra positions with volunteers or volunteers do not show up for their shifts, the burden falls on the clinic’s limited working staff.

“If we’re short-staffed with volunteers, it becomes a problem because often we’ll have to have paid staff step in and often those paid staff are kind of juggling three, four, or five things at the same time already,” Hahn said. “Then they have to step into a volunteer role to compensate, so it just puts a lot of burden on the staff.”

With recent advertising pushes for more volunteers from the community, Schmidt says the clinic has currently been successful in finding an abundance of volunteers.

In an email to The Daily Iowan, Schmidt said the clinic receives about 5,000 volunteer hours per year from around 350 volunteer individuals.

“Nonprofits in general just don’t get a lot of funding. We don’t have big budgets,” Hahn said. “And so we really do depend on just the kindness of the community to come in and help us out.”

Charles Hilliard, a third-year student at Kirkwood Community College, said for those who are interested in working in the medical field professionally, volunteering can be a great starting point while also benefiting another organization.

“Having volunteers who have more free time can definitely help out with that,” Hilliard said. “Plus, those who have less experience but want to get into the medical field can get that experience by volunteering.”

Hahn started as a volunteer for the clinic as a college student. She said the volunteering experience has brought her new friendships and opportunities and encourages people to give to the community.

“Without the volunteers, I don’t think we could exist at the clinic. So we really depend on them,” Hahn said. “We really cherish and value the volunteers because I really think that they’re kind of the backbone of how we function at the clinic.”