Many of Atlanta’s unhoused residents face challenges accessing basic care. The opportunities to receive medical assistance that are available often treat homeless neighbors as a number in the system, but local herbalists are working to provide free holistic health services around the city.
Fleur + Forage, a nonprofit founded by herbalist Marie-Lies Van Asten, runs a free herbal clinic at various ministries throughout Atlanta to share the healing power of plants as well as free reiki, massage, and acupuncture services with people experiencing homelessness.
Local herbalists sit in consultation with patients living on the street, who often ask for herbal preparations that can help with daily challenges like pain, digestive issues, and sleep, Van Asten said.
She also sees the outreach as essential to community-building, and her organization is hosting a fundraiser on Nov. 3 to support their work and expand the locations they are able to serve, including establishing a clinic in Athens.
“My herbal practice skyrocketed from being just for my personal use to actually using it to connect to a community I had not connected with at a deeper level — people who are experiencing homelessness. I really was touched and changed by the work I was doing and seeing how important it was to show up every month and offer care,” she said.
From 2018 to 2021, Van Asten managed the herbal apothecary for Herbalista Free Clinic, which has provided these services for the mostly unhoused congregation of Mercy Community Church in Midtown for years.
“Our folks are always asking when [the herbalists] are coming,” Mercy Church Pastor Chad Hyatt said, noting that the consistency has provided an opportunity to foster ongoing relationships between the community and the volunteers. “The number one thing is, it’s care. People are being addressed with dignity, treated with respect, treated as human beings, which for my community is not always the case.”
Fleur + Forage has operated the free clinic at Mercy Church once a month since 2022 and has also recently begun setting up at The Friendship Center in Ormewood Park and at the monthly “Toesday” foot clinic event hosted by Church of the Common Ground at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on Peachtree St.
“The herbal [preparations] and whether it’s reiki or it’s acupuncture or it’s massages — these are things that we just don’t get. So to have that kind of care for our bodies and our spirits, it addresses the whole person honestly. And people love it,” Hyatt said.
Along with these three monthly offerings, the organization participates in events like the Lazarus Health Day.
“We need more funds so that we can keep showing up for the setups that we’ve committed to,” she said, adding that friends of the clinic are hoping to establish new locations in the West End and in Athens.
Fleur + Forage is hosting an afternoon of herbal distillations, hot tea and desserts, and a silent auction at the Edgewood Community Learning Garden on Nov. 3 from 2pm to 5pm. Tickets are $25 — kids can attend for free — and include an essential oil made from local plants to take home.
The silent auction will include different versions of the Fleur + Forgae “Apothebox,” the setup Van Asten uses at the free clinics to organize and distribute herbal preparations, that come with herbal remedies to support specific body systems, like the immune or digestive system, along with a book by Jill Stansbury about that body system and a handmade mug by a local artist.
Fleur + Forage grows some of the plants herbalists use, forages others, and accepts donations from local farmers and gardeners who want to contribute herbs to the community. With more frequent free clinics, the organization is handing out more herbal preparations each month and needs to be able to buy more supplies to make them, Van Asten said.
“The most important thing is not necessarily giving someone an herbal preparation, as much as just sitting with them and listening to them. If all you do for 20 minutes is just have a conversation and listen about what is going on in their life, sometimes that’s all they need,” Van Asten said. “To me, it’s a contrast to what the medical system is offering, which is really fast-paced.”
Editor’s note: Grace Donnelly volunteers with the Fleur + Forage free clinic.
