CORE/El Centro – Healing mind, body and soul

Ever since she found emotional and spiritual healing through holistic medicine, Madeline Gianforte has sought to share that knowledge with others.

“Painful experiences in my own life led me to exploring ways to heal and that allowed me then to get the inner strength and the inner healing that I needed to give back,” said Gianforte.

After noticing a lack of access to health care among poor and marginalized communities in the U.S., she went to John F. Kennedy University to get a master’s degree in holistic health education, where she wrote her thesis on starting a clinic that relied on holistic medicine. It was when she returned to her home in Milwaukee and started to set up her own center with business partner Jayne Ader that she found a remarkable form of medicine at the Powderhorn Cultural Wellness Center in Minneapolis, MN.

“The question they asked people was ‘what is the greatest cause of illness and disease in the community?’” she recalled. “And across all cultures people said [it was] a sense of isolation. So when people feel isolated, that’s when they get ill.”

Since that discovery, Gianforte and Ader have guided CORE/El Centro to not only be a place of holistic healing for people of low income, but also a place for people to build relationships with one another.

“We recognized…that people who feel isolated were coming for the services, connecting with one another, and forming a sense of community,” said Gianforte. “Then isolation began to melt away, and that’s when people began to feel better, start taking better care of themselves, and live healthier lives.”

Since opening in 2002 with the mission of serving the low-income, primarily Latino population on Milwaukee’s south side, CORE/El Centro’s clientele has swelled to 3,000 annually as of 2010 — 70% of whom are Hispanic and another 70% of whom are poor enough to receive therapies such as massage, acupuncture and reiki at the cheapest rate of $10-15 per session.

The fees are assesed on a sliding scale based on annual income and number of dependents. Prices are kept low by clients paying the full price of $60 per session, which helps to cover the cost of those who cannot pay, as do volunteers who are professionally trained in certain methods of treatment. In 2009, these volunteers provided almost $300,000 in services. Although volunteers cannot trade time for services, 10 hours of work per month gets them free access to unlimited dance and exercise classes, which usually costs a monthly fee of $35.

Additionally, CORE/El Centro receives grants and donations, which cover most of its operating costs, as well as fundraising events like the “Whole in One” golf outing (scheduled for August 1 in memory of Gianforte’s mother), which specifically raises money for their “Thriving with Cancer” program.

Although some patients come for help with critical health issues like cancer or diabetes, Pat Bogenschuetz, CORE/El Centro’s Development Director has noticed minor physical ailments tend to expose greater health issues.

“Maybe I come because I have pain in my knee, but connected with that there’s some sort of emotional wellness that I could be addressing, or spiritual wellness, or mental wellness,” said Bogenschuetz. “CORE is very cognizant of the fact that it’s all intertwined.”

Maria Miramontes learned that lesson 14 years ago when she immigrated to Milwaukee from Mexico. She came to CORE/El Centro for help with her high blood pressure (which was putting her dangerously close to diabetes) and ended up confronting the isolation she felt in her new home.

“I came over with depression, anxiety, and loneliness,” said Miramontes. “Having people around me and just to have sessions with reiki and acupuncture helped me to ground and take care of myself. And little by little…I started sharing with more people and being part of the community. That was a huge part of my recovery.”

Since then, Miramontes has been a patient, a volunteer, and now an employee, staffing the front desk at CORE/El Centro. She is also a Community Health Promoter  for “Proyecto Salud,” an activism project that is focused on teaming up with local leaders, businesses and medical specialists to spread awareness and training on health issues.

Teaming up with individuals and organizations in the community has been CORE/El Centro’s modus operandi from it’s inception. After Gianforte and Ader fleshed out the idea for the center, Gianforte, a sister in the Congregation of St. Agnes, requested the necessary start-up funds from her order, while Ader’s Aurora clinic (then on 10th and Madison)  allowed her to split her time between both places. Despite her own personal connection to the Catholic Church, Gianforte says CORE/El Centro a place of spiritual healing, unattached to any religion and open to everyone.

The center initially opened alone on the fourth floor of La Esperanza Unida Building, 611 W. National Ave. Ten months later, Ader convinced her bosses to move the Aurora clinic into the space, at which point it became the Aurora Walker’s Point Community Clinic, providing traditional medical care to uninsured and under-insured. In 2005, The Healing Center, an organization that provides counseling and legal aid to victims of sexual abuse, joined them. Combined, these organizations became The Healing Collective, integrating their services to provide physical, emotional and spiritual treatment for medical conditions.

“Since 2005, the leaders of the organizations have met and continued to look at ways we can collaborate, ways that we can partner, and ways that we can integrate,” said Gianforte. “When we were looking at moving, we said if one organization moved then all three had to go, because we were so integrated and needed each other in order to really be effective in the community.”

Today, it is difficult to discern any physical borders between the organizations. They share common rooms, a children’s playroom, laundry facilities and treatment rooms that are decorated with Zen-like simplicity. Although the Healing Collective has become virtually inseparable, its members look forward to the additional space they will have in Spring of 2012, when they build and move into a new eco-friendly building at 538 S. 2nd, developed with the help urban revitalization firm Milwaukee Fix.

“[The building will allow] us to create the space and design it in a way that will meet the needs of all of the organizations, which is really a gift—you don’t usually have the opportunity to do that,” said Gianforte.

However, more important than the one-stop-shop treatment of The Healing Collective and the extra facilities of the new building is the sense of camaraderie that has developed among clients, volunteers, employees and neighbors, something that Gianforte did not envision while she planned out CORE/El Centro in graduate school.

“I saw CORE/El Centro as more of a natural healing clinic where people would just come for services,” she said. “But…it’s become a place where people come because they want to connect with one another, not only because they want to come for the service, but because there is a sense of community that has been formed…it’s almost like a family.”