When Daisy Marquez first heard about Mission of Mercy, it was during a conversation with a nurse that she had while working toward her bachelor’s degree in biology at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff. As an aspiring pre-med student, the nurse shared that if she needed volunteer hours, she would enjoy volunteering with MOM. However, at the time, the trek from Flagstaff to Phoenix was too long of a commute while attending school.
“When I came back to Phoenix after graduating NAU, I decided to look into it,” Marquez says. “I didn’t know anything about MOM’s mission, but I remembered the recommendation.”
After meeting with MOM’s volunteer coordinator and touring a clinic, she decided that serving as a Spanish-English medical interpreter would be a good fit for her and would build valuable skills while she worked toward her dream of attending medical school.
“I really love volunteering for MOM. I think the reason is because I really do stand for health equity,” Marquez says. “I’m a minority and my first language is Spanish, so I can relate to a lot of the patients who are medically underserved. It’s hard to get good care, and different biases and stereotypes often come into play, but not at Mission of Mercy. The quality care they provide at no charge is revolutionary really.”
Marquez, who is Hispanic and moved to Buckeye, as an infant, began volunteering at MOM’s Avondale clinic two Mondays a month as a medical interpreter in September 2023.
She says overall, MOM’s patients are very grateful and can clearly see the difference in the care they receive at MOM versus other local clinics.
“I have patients who call me ‘mija’ [an endearing term that means ‘my daughter’ in Spanish] and want to give me hugs when they see me. It’s a loving, joyous atmosphere like being a part of their family,” Marquez says. “When they come to MOM, they not only get their physical health healed, but their mental health also improves through those relationships.”
A future medical student, Marquez says that seeing how the volunteer physicians at MOM interact with patients has been inspiring to her.
“The volunteer medical team at MOM is amazing,” Marquez says. “They are compassionate, caring and empathetic. If you volunteer with MOM, it’s definitely not like volunteering with any other organization. The benefits that you get from volunteering are much greater. It’s truly a transformative experience for yourself that you will not regret.”
When she is not working or volunteering, Marquez is active within her church community at St. Henry, and enjoys running and spending time with her family.
