You can get some exercise, enjoy the early spring weather and raise funds for a new clinic run by Wayne State University School of Medicine students during the first Spring Check-up 5K Run/Walk.

The run/walk, set for April 11 at 11 a.m., will take place on Belle Isle, with the start and finish line at the Remick Music Shell. Anyone can take part in the event.

The run/walk is a fundraiser to support the proposed Robert R. Frank Student Run Free Clinic and the Wayne State University student chapter of the American Medical Association.

Registration to run or walk is $20, which includes a T-shirt. Medals will be awarded to the top finishers. While not a requirement to take part in the event, organizers are asking runners to attempt to raise additional funding by securing 10 pledges of $10 each to help support the clinic. Pledge forms are available at http://amadetroit.org/index.php?page=spring-checkup-5k

“We expect to have both experienced runners and people who will be walking or running just for fun,” said third-year medical student Robert McWhirter, who serves as chairman of the board of the proposed clinic. “We are hoping that this will be an event to bring the community together to raise awareness and funds for the uninsured.”

School of Medicine students Jessica Levely, Kristy Kelel and Melinda Schaller, who are coordinating the run/walk, said the clinic also needs supplies, including blood collection tubes, pharmaceuticals, gloves, masks, betadine and dressings. The students are also seeking a lockable medicine cabinet, file cabinet and office supplies. Notebook computers are also needed, and used computers in good working condition would be accepted as donations.

In addition to individual runners and walkers, the students are seeking larger financial sponsors, as well as donations of food, water and other products. For more information, contact clinic Assistant Director Levely at jlevely@med.wayne.edu.

Students at the School of Medicine are laying the groundwork to open the new free community clinic to serve the people of Detroit. They are negotiating with directors of the Mercy Primary Care Center free clinic located at 5555 Connor Ave. to open one day a month, after the normal operating hours of the Mercy staff.

Yara Fardous, a second-year medical student who is executive director, said the clinic initially will be open one Saturday per month. “When we obtain a firm grasp on running the clinic efficiently and effectively, we will then look to be open two Saturdays per month, and then ultimately, every Saturday.”

McWhirter said that 70 School of Medicine students, along with about 30 WSU undergraduate students, have volunteered to assist the clinic.

The students decided to name the clinic after Executive Vice Dean Robert Frank, M.D., because of his decades of community involvement, including assuming responsibility for a student-run free clinic in the Jeffries Housing Project in 1968.