The implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) generated plenty of talk around the country. But for a group of UAB students, some of the most important discussions took place in Birmingham beauty salons, churches, malls, and even car washes. There, the students shared the facts about the ACA’s impact on health care and helped people enroll in affordable private insurance plans.

These students were part of Bama Covered, a nonpartisan, grassroots organization founded by Josh Carpenter, a 2010 alumnus of the UAB Collat School of Business, and his friend Daniel Liss. In fact, UAB students numbered more than 100 of the group’s nearly 700 college-student volunteers statewide.

Ashleigh Staples (pictured, left) faced the task of coordinating them all as UAB team captain, which required late nights after her political science classes in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Working with such enthusiastic peers made it easy,” says the junior from Alabaster, Ala., and Golden Excellence Scholarship winner. She also joined volunteers on the community walkabouts. Talking with strangers about their health care in various places was intimidating at first, she recalls. “I had to remind myself that what we had to say was valuable. We were armed with knowledge and resources that could potentially transform someone’s life.”