On its own: how local organizations piece together search and rescue operations along Alaska's Arctic coastline

The National Council for Mental Wellbeing's Mental Health First Aid for Rural Communities trains local residents to recognize mental health warning signs and provide critical support until professional help arrives. The program equips non-medical community members with skills to spot crises, have supportive conversations, and navigate people to appropriate resources. In central New York alone, more than 6,000 people have been trained across 10 rural counties, providing life-saving interventions, particularly in areas where emergency services are hard to access.

In 2017, residents of Kabuga Aisami in Kano built their own maternal and child health hospital to address maternal mortality rates and improve access to care. Led by the Kabuga Aisami Community Initiative (KACI), community members pooled resources to construct the facility, which includes two labor rooms, three wards with 40 beds, four laboratories, a pharmacy, 25 toilets, and three self-contained flats for doctors to enable 24-hour care. Patient volume has since increased by over 250%, and the hospital has expanded to serve 10 surrounding communities, as well.

Local activists are joining together to protest the potential closure of Southwest Memorial Hospital’s birthing center, advocating and organizing to ensure the hospital stays open and locals can access the care they need in rural areas.

Emergency medical services in rural Minnesota are dealing with staffing and funding shortages by creating new systems that allow them to work together to respond to calls and are more flexible with where volunteers need to be located.

The Fortress of the Vulnerable Child Rescue Initiative gathers volunteers to provide an education to displaced primary school-aged children from low-income families. The organization can accommodate up to 300 children at a time and is in the process of gathering funds to build an official school building.

A rural community that struggles to access emergency healthcare is working together to reduce maternal mortality during childbirth by pooling resources, funds, and expertise to provide care at a community-run clinic. Since beginning their efforts, mortality has been reduced by 40%.

Residents of California are working together to crowdsource where COVID-19 vaccinations are being offered, and who they're being offered to. While the state has failed to implement a transparent dissemination strategy, 70 volunteers joined forces to create a spreadsheet that keeps track of what clinics are offering the shot and what parameters must be met to receive it. Users have reported that they were able to schedule an appointment because of this effort.

Jason Friesen, an American paramedic who had served in Haiti after the earthquake, realized that many poor communities in the Caribbean were lacking the equivalent of the United States’ 911 emergency medical services, and were facing increased death tolls as a consequence. Friesen realized he could help such communities set up emergency response systems through the use of volunteers and a simple text message exchange. Now, his organization Trek Medics simplifies and democratizes the emergency dispatch system, and, as a result, saves lives in rural communities.

The Virginia Fire Chiefs Association's Rural Apparatus Support Program has donated essential used firefighting equipment (including ambulances, fire engines, and tanker trucks) to 14 rural fire departments over two years, enabling departments with minimal budgets to replace broken or outdated equipment they could never afford to purchase new.

L’Heure Civique aims to make it easier and more flexible for French citizens to volunteer in an era where fewer and fewer people are regularly volunteering, requiring just an hour of service per month and offering up opportunities as they come rather than requiring long-term commitment. The organization is now active in about 250 communities with more than 24,000 volunteers.