Marie and Rosa: A Perfect Pair for our Physical Therapy Program

Together, Marie and Rosa make a fantastic team that over the years has helped hundreds of patients recover from physical trauma and chronic pain through Arlington Free Clinic’s physical therapy program. Marie has been a volunteer physical therapist at AFC since 2003. After many years on staff at the Clinic, when she retired in 2016, Rosa became a volunteer Spanish interpreter for the PT program.

Marie started volunteering at AFC when she retired from the Army—she typically spends two mornings a week here seeing patients, and has been doing this for over 15 years! Physical therapy is a costly service that would be inaccessible to most of our patients absent Arlington Free Clinic. Many of our patients work in jobs that are hard on the body such as child care, construction, and house-cleaning, and Marie is happy to be able to share her skills with a population that can really benefit.

Rosa worked on staff at the Clinic since the early 2000s. She’s had various roles as an employee, most recently working as the physical therapy program coordinator. Over the years, Rosa developed strong ties to our patients and the lengths to which she would go to make sure patients’ kids had presents under the tree on Christmas morning, or those who were undergoing chemotherapy had rides to treatment, are legendary.

In 2015, Rosa was in a terrible car accident and began a long road to recovery. While recuperating, she logged extensive hours in physical therapy herself. As soon as she received the go-ahead from her doctors, Rosa was back at the Clinic in a wheelchair volunteering her time as an interpreter—and it was Marie who was often the one providing transportation for Rosa to and from the Clinic. As Rosa has pushed hard for her recovery while simultaneously continuing to support our patients in their own physical therapy, she has served as a living example of determination and self-motivation.

Read our complete 2017 Annual Report.