• November 15, 1997 was when it all started. An old friend had given Laura Block a free pass to attend the third year of Anime Weekend Atlanta. She recalls: “That Saturday night at the dance, a member of our merry band of misfits sprained his ankle pogo-dancing.” She wrapped and iced the ankle, and a department was born. At first we seemed to be called, “Dr. Laura, HEEEEELP!”
• By 2002, we were busy enough that we could justify bringing in more medically-trained crew and housing them onsite, so we became “AWA Medical.” Our first members were all part of the GA-3 DMAT (Disaster Medical Assistance Team), but when Hurricane Rita hit in 2005, the GA-3 DMAT team was almost deployed to Texas. Laura was *this close* to working AWA by herself. So we began to cast our net wider for volunteers.  
• AWA Medical became “Bunnies Without Borders” in 2014.
• In 2016, we hit a wall: we were required by a venue to obtain an insurance policy for the entire department, instead of just relying on our own individual liability policies. But the annual cost of that policy for a 25-member team was more than our annual budget had ever been.
• In 2017, we spun off as Usagi Medical Group (Usagi is Japanese for “rabbit.”) We began talking to other conventions within a 500 mile radius of Atlanta with whom to partner. ​Today, we work with close to 40+ certified and credentialed volunteers.