When Sal Caminada retired from being a professor of health and nutrition at Allan Hancock College, he wanted to spend his retirement doing something good for the community.
That’s how he came to volunteer at the SLO Noor Foundation, a free clinic that serves San Luis Obispo County and Northern Santa Barbara County. He’s been volunteering for more than four years.
“It’s probably the best working experience I’ve ever had because the people that come in truly believe in helping and truly believe that there’s a need to help people and if they don’t get paid, that doesn’t matter,” Caminada said.
Started by Dr. Ahmad Nooristani in 2011, the nonprofit is celebrating 15 years of providing medical, dental, and vision care to those without insurance at its three clinics and mobile health services.
“I think Noor is needed now more than ever,” said SLO Noor Executive Director Barbara Alarcon. “There is a large population in San Luis Obispo County that is considered the working core, because we work full-time jobs and we can’t afford the premiums for Covered California but we don’t qualify for Medi-Cal so it leaves us uninsured.”
While some people in the county have to decide between spending money on food or medical care, Alarcon said people do not need to weigh that with Noor.
“We’ll do our best to take very good care of them,” Alarcon said. “So I just want people to know we’re there and they don’t have to work themselves into the grave literally.”
Prior to SLO Noor, Alarcon was working in health care offices that took insurance. She found out about SLO Noor because her friend was having breathing issues and couldn’t afford to see a doctor. After doing some research, Alarcon came across the nonprofit and her friend was able to receive the help they needed.
“At Noor, you don’t need any of that because we’re just there to give equitable health care to anybody who needs it,” Alarcon said. “It does not matter who you are, we’ll get you where you’re at.”
Insurance has so many rules that “it’s kind of gotten away from good medicine,” Alarcon said.
Based on the care that patients need, Noor works with its partner organizations to schedule things like free surgeries. For one patient with a detached retina who was at risk of losing her vision, SLO Noor set her up with Pacific Eye where she got four surgeries.
“If we weren’t here, she would have never had the first surgery, and she’d be fully blind right now,” Alarcon said. “She is a mother, and she does work for a living so it’s made a huge difference for her to be able to continue to do so through having free surgeries.”
For some patients, the clinic finds cancer and helps them get access to treatment.
“Sometimes you get these gentlemen that are kind of machismo, they don’t want to admit that they need help, they’re kind of tough,” Alarcon said. “So we got one of these new patients. We just wore him down, kept loving on him, kept loving on him. He had really bad labs so we called him back in and we as gracefully as we could told him, we were really worried about his labs and that we needed to run more stuff.”
He was diagnosed with leukemia, but SLO Noor caught it early enough that he could get help.
In the clinic, Caminada works as a nutritional doctor, counseling patients about their diets as a way to treat medical issues. He believes in treating the patient, regardless of immigration status, what they look like, or anything else.
“In our clinic, we want patients to come in, we want them to feel safe, right? Especially in this political climate,” Caminada said. “We want them to be safe, and we want to provide great health care for them, and we want them to leave happy.”
Alarcon said seeing the direct impact of the patients getting healthier, loosening up, and getting to know them is a beautiful process, and she is blessed to be around people who show up for their community.
“We are just a beautiful free clinic that can, I would say, compete with any other office out there,” Alarcon said. “You can’t tell we’re a free clinic.”
Fast fact
• Hillel of San Luis Obispo Executive Director Lauren Bandari was honored in recognition of Jewish American Heritage Month by Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay). Bandari previously served as the executive director of San Luis Obispo’s Jewish Community Center Federation and she earned a para-rabbinic certificate from the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Bandari said she’s honored to receive this recognition, which reflects the active Jewish community she’s proud to represent. ∆
Reach Intern Katy Clark at intern@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Summer Guide 2026.
