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The **Virginia Climate and Health Education Collaborative (VCHEC)** is part of **Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action**, a statewide organization working to **protect health by tackling climate change**.

In honor of **Earth Day 2025**, we’re asking for your support to help VCHEC host our **largest educational conference for health professional students — ever!**

VCHEC is building a movement of health professionals — students, doctors, nurses, public health workers, and educators — who are ready to **lead on climate and health**. We create spaces where students and trainees can **learn, engage, and collaborate** — because when healthcare leaders understand the link between a changing climate and our communities’ health, they can drive real, lasting change.

**Why climate and health? Why now?**
The health impacts of climate change are here — and growing. **Health professionals are trusted messengers** who see the effects firsthand. Their voices matter in the fight for a healthier future. Here’s why:

- **Extreme heat** causes heat stroke, dehydration, and worsens chronic conditions.
- **Air pollution** from fossil fuels contributes to asthma, heart disease, and early death.
- **Floods, fires, and hurricanes** displace communities and strain healthcare systems.
- **Vector-borne diseases** like Lyme and West Nile are expanding with warmer temperatures.
- **Mental health** suffers from disaster trauma, displacement, and climate anxiety.
- **Health professionals can lead**, inform policy, and inspire action like few others.

**Just look at Dr. Lena Bichell.**
A UVA pediatric resident, Lena helped launch UVA’s first climate and health elective, founded a chapter of Medical Students for a Sustainable Future, and continues to lead. Her journey shows how **education + support = climate leadership.**

In just a few years, VCHEC has:

- Hosted Virginia’s only **annual Climate and Health Summit** (since 2021)
- Launched the state’s first **climate and health courses** at UVA and Shenandoah
- **Integrated climate-health education** into medical and nursing schools
- Funded **student-led sustainability and public health initiatives**
- Built a growing, statewide network of committed health professionals

**This year’s goal: Raise $10,000** to fund our next Climate and Health Summit — a one-of-a-kind gathering for students, educators, and health professionals across Virginia.

**Every $250 gift sponsors a student’s full participation** — helping them attend, learn, and bring their passion back to their communities.

And thanks to a **100% donor match**, your impact is doubled — we’ll reach our goal if we can raise just **$5000** together.

**Invest in VCHEC. Invest in climate action. Invest in community health.**
Thank you for standing with us.

**Students and trainees** interested in attending this fall’s VCHEC conference (date TBD), please email us at [**info@virginiaclinicians.org**]().

Want updates from VCCA? Sign up at [**virginiaclinicians.org/join**](https://www.virginiaclinicians.org/join).

*Donations to VCCA go through Virginia Organizing, our 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor.*

Together for Tomorrow: Power VCCA’s Student Conference

VCCA works to educate Virginian communities, health professionals, and lawmakers about the health impacts of climate change.

In 2015, pediatrician Dr. Samantha Ahdoot was asked to testify in front of the Virginia General Assembly, on behalf of the American Academy of Pediatrics, in support of a clean air bill. Virginia legislators were surprised and initially confused that a physician was speaking out about climate change, but many noted that the pediatrician's statement led them to support the bill, and the bill passed. 

Following this experience, Dr. Ahdoot realized that the voice of health professionals was needed, and lacking in statewide discussions about climate action. She and other health professionals began meeting in the hospital conference room to talk about how they could educate, empower, and mobilize other health professionals to become advocates for climate solutions in Virginia.

Almost 10 years later, VCCA has over 650 members, with committees including Healthcare Sustainability, Nutrition, Legislative Advocacy, Education, and Climate Justice, who are engaged in action at health professional schools, communities, and health systems across the state of Virginia. 

Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action

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