Mission

The mission of the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) is to engage volunteers to strengthen public health, emergency response, and community resiliency.

Overview

• MRC units are community-based and function to locally organize and utilize volunteers who want to donate their time and expertise to prepare for and respond to emergencies and promote healthy living throughout the year. MRC volunteers supplement existing emergency and public health resources. 
• MRC volunteers include medical and public health professionals, such as physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, veterinarians, and epidemiologists. Many community members — Interpreters, chaplains, office workers, legal advisors, and others — fill key support positions. 
• Each MRC unit is organized and trained to address a wide range of challenges from public health education to disaster response. These community members have worked hard to master a variety of skills – in medicine, public health, safety, logistics, communications, public service, animal care, and several other areas. Volunteering with the Medical Reserve Corps is a simple and effective way to use and improve those skills, while helping to keep family, friends and neighbors safe and healthy.

Why Volunteer?

Volunteering can give the great satisfaction of helping others. For many individuals, volunteering gives them a sense of purpose and meaning in their lives. It helps to broaden their social networks, and that can have many positive effects. Volunteering provides opportunities for social interactions with fellow volunteers while supporting an important activity in the community. Interacting with others with a common interest is also a great way to create new relationships.

Volunteering can also have a significant effect on your own health. Research presented by the Corporation for National and Community Service shows a strong relationship between volunteering and health: Those who volunteer have lower mortality rates, greater functional ability, and lower rates of depression later in life than those who do not volunteer.