The Community Free Clinic of Newport News will be developed at a site on 25th Street donated by Riverside. W.M. Jordan has agreed to support the conversion of this 6,000 sq. ft. doctor's office into a Free Clinic model. Riverside has also agreed to support the project with electronic medical records and management until it spins off into its own 501c3 charitable organization shortly after we get it operational. Volunteer health professionals will provide a significant proportion of health care services at this Free Clinic.

We all know about the drugs, guns and gangs that plague this community. A sense of hopelessness hangs over these neighborhoods. Over 22,000 people who live there have no medical insurance and cannot afford the care they need. The average household income is below $10,000 a year. Can you imagine what it would be like to be a single, unemployed mother with three children with no health insurance and having to choose between having something to eat for your children or getting proper medication for yourself? We will see hundreds of cases like this and create a wonderful opportunity to make a fundamental change in peoples' lives.

We will be joining our colleagues at PICH, (Peninsula Institute for Community Health, a federally qualified health center-- sliding scale fees) the region's Federally Qualified Health Organization, in tackling this tough challenge. PICH cannot fill the entire need, as they are restricted by their federal funding to a sliding scale fee structure and service limitations. We have already received donations of complete dental suites to provide preventive dental care for these citizens, one of the most dramatic unmet needs in the southeast community of Newport News.