Filmed by Brian Lindstrom and co-produced by Frederick resident and business owner, Jessica Feltz, the film follows six diverse community acupuncture patients and shows the impact of affordable acupuncture on their lives and communities. Lindstrom tells the story of the community acupuncture movement: how a small group of loud-mouthed, over-educated, under-employed activists and a massive group of ordinary people with average incomes revolutionized healthcare services by using large empty rooms, old recliner chairs, and two-cent needles.
Community acupuncture is a social justice movement that provides affordable and accessible acupuncture to people of ordinary incomes and creates sustainable living wage jobs for acupuncture practitioners while building community. In 2002, two Portland acupuncturists, Skip Van Meter and Lisa Rohleder, opened Working Class Acupuncture (WCA) with the intention of making acupuncture affordable and accessible. They wanted to treat their friends and neighbors, so they redesigned the conventional acupuncture business model, treating patients in a communal setting in used recliners, and charging a sliding scale of $15-35 per treatment. Over 200 community acupuncture clinics across North America have replicated WCA's practice model and offer affordable care to their communities. Reliable and conservative estimates suggest that 500,000 treatments are given annually in community acupuncture clinics.
