“Medicine cures but inspiration heals,” is the motto of Inspirational Medicine, the nonprofit organization founded at Dickinson by Coleman Bass ’12.

On Wednesday, April 9 in Allison Community Hall, Inspirational Medicine hosted a blind wine tasting event targeted towards an audience of mostly seniors and faculty members.

“This event was to raise funds towards a project that we are working on and generally to create more awareness for our organization,” said Henry Kumi ’14, the Corporate Relations coordinator and Inspirational Medicine student ambassador.

The event, which was met with support from the Dickinson community, managed to raise $500.

Stephen Erfle, associate professor and chair of International Studies, Business and Management acted as the wine connoisseur. The night’s offerings included four white wines and four red whites, as well as performances by the Octals and jazz saxophonist Edwin Padilla ’16.

According to Erfle, the wine tasting allowed attendees to learn about Inspirational Medicine in a fun and educational setting.

“The nice thing about a blind tasting is that it provides an educational experience for all involved,” said Erfle. “ My guess is that everyone present was surprised at least once, and probably more than once, by the comparisons they were able to make.”

“I was happy to be able to help out for such a worthy cause,” Erfle continued. “I enjoyed their presentation about the core mission of Inspirational Medicine as well as their presence at Dickinson.”

Steven Rodriguez ’14, a board member and a student ambassador, said the event was designed to be educational. The wine tasting helped the audience learn about the process of winemaking as well as the goals and aspirations of the organization.

“We wanted to let them see how far we’ve come in the past two years,” said Rodriguez.

Another goal of the charity wine tasting was to help some of the junior and sophomore members learn what their responsibilities will be when they are charged with planning campus events.

“We want to be able to create that bridge where we can still leave Inspirational Medicine at Dickinson,” said Rodriguez. He added that an event like the one on Wednesday requires a lot of thinking and prioritizing.

“We try to have a lot more innovative and creative events in order to differentiate ourselves,” said Kumi when explaining the foundation’s event planning process. In the past two years, Inspirational Medicine has organized other events such as The Art Walk on Morgan Field and An Afternoon to Inspire with Issei Noodle.

Since then, Kumi explained, the organization has experienced a strong growth. Three members of the senior class have joined, which has helped to spread the word and diversify the work of the organization.

“Based on these new seniors, we’ve been able to spread the word [of Inspirational Medicine] to other classes,” said Kumi.

According to Kumi, the organization is a cross-functional team, made up of many different students with different majors. He added, “Everyone brings something special to the table.”

Now, according to Rodriguez, the organization is working on raising money towards their program, the Inspire Campaign, which works on putting mobile technology into hospitals. He also added that one of their goals is to use iPads as a way to connect and alleviate the psychological effects of illness.

As a growing organization, the members of Inspirational Medicine realize that they could have a broader impact by using any form of innovative technology in the hospitals.

In the future, Rodriguez said that the organization hopes to approach philanthropy with a modern angle, by viewing charity with a business lens and therefore creating a measurable and visible impact and bringing Eastern healthcare ideals into Western medicine.

For more information about Inspirational Medicine, contact Rodriquez at [email protected] or Kumi at [email protected], or visit http://www.inspirationalmedicine.org.