Three Rush University students have been awarded Schweitzer Fellowships: medical student Vivian Leung and nursing students Saria Lofton and Benson Wright.  The Fellowships support exceptional students in health-related fields as they develop and direct year-long projects to improve health and access to care in underserved Chicago communities.

Leung will establish a vegetable garden at William H. King Elementary School and involve students in gardening as an after-school program.  The program will provide a hands-on approach for the students to learn about nutrition, plant biology and healthy food choices.  Lofton proposes to start a nutrition and exercise program for African-American youth on the West side of Chicago.  Wright plans to organize health screenings and classes for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth at the Howard Brown Broadway Youth Center.

With the current economic downturn, one in eight Americans must rely on food stamps.  Three quarters of a million Chicagoans are uninsured, and nearly 20 percent of the city’s residents’ incomes are below the poverty line.

“There has never been a more important need for altruism in our nation’s life,” remarked Dr. Quentin Young, chair of the Chicago Schweitzer Program.  “The Schweitzer Fellowship – each and every year – gives rich expression to this impulse to competitively selected health students in our community, the future leaders of our society.”

Thirty-one students representing 18 different university programs including medicine, nursing, psychology, public health, social work, art therapy, and law were selected for Schweitzer Fellowships this year.  Over 105 applications were considered.

Named in honor of famed humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the Fellowship encourages exceptional students in health and human service fields to “make their lives their argument” by serving the most vulnerable members of society, including the uninsured, immigrants, the homeless, returning veterans, minorities and the working poor.  Now in its fifteenth year, the Schweitzer Fellowship addresses the serious health challenges of local communities while encouraging aspiring professionals to honor their idealism.  The program is administered by the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group, a Chicago nonprofit that focuses on health care access of the working poor and uninsured.