Tables covered with piles of used clothes lined the West Mall on Friday to raise funds for a sustainability project in Guarjila, El Salvador.

GlobeMed, an organization that started on campus in 2010, partnered with a clinic in Guarjila, Clinica Ana Manganaro, to improve the health of people living in El Salvador. 

According to Michelle Zhang, Plan II sophomore and campaigns committee member for GlobeMed, Clinica Ana Manganaro notifies GlobeMed about the health project initiative for the year, and GlobeMed creates events to raise money and collect donations.

“The emaphsis for GlobeMed is to promote partnership and equity and sustainability,” Zhang said. “We are trying to empower the people in Guarjila to let them be more aware of their own needs instead of us going in and just prescribing what to do. The campaigns committee comes up with the ideas for the fundraising, but then everybody in the [organization] helps toward achieving the monetary goal.”

During the thrift shop event, Cassady Allen, pre-physical and health promotion junior, said she chose to buy some of the organization’s used clothes because she connected with the cause.

“With people overseas, I always want to help out whenever I can,” Allen said. “Plus, I bought two blouses for $5 total.”

Spanish junior Nickki Rees, director of fund-raising for GlobeMed, said the organization has only raised $500, but she expects to collect most of their funds during their bigger events in the spring. 

“We have a benefit concert, which we usually raise over $2,000 with that,” Rees said. “We’re having an event where we invite other UT organizations to come and showcase themselves; it’ll be a like a talent show. We also have ‘Kayak for a Cause’ from Oct. 20-26. If you go to ‘Live Love Paddle’ and say you’re with GlobeMed, we get 50 percent of the profits.”

According to Ibis Rojas, biology junior and the co-campaigns coordinator, a group of UT students have summer internships with Clinica Ana Manganaro. The students will work at the clinic, assess the effectiveness of their current project and discuss future projects.

She said she believes GlobeMed provides experiences unlike those of other organizations.

“Our partner benefits from us in the money we give them, but we benefit from them by learning the different culture, people and ways of another country,” Rojas said, “GlobeMed is different in that we handpick our members, and we like to call ourselves a family.”