Developing collaborative projects that involve community health nurses, researchers, health providers, community groups and individuals is one way to increase an awareness of critical health needs. This paper describes a community, collaborative effort to bring a Remote Area Medical (RAM) event to southwestern Virginia and northeastern Tennessee. It also presents a description of the information gathered from the attendees of the RAM event that was used by local community health care agencies and politicians to leverage state and national officials for increased health care services for this area of Appalachia.