With 73 miles of road separating the four primary care and dental clinics that serve the 30,000 low income patients seen each year at the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, having a reliable vehicle to transport the myriad of files between the clinics is crucial. Add on to that the need to courier drugs between the pharmacies two times per day and the need for a dependable vehicle is evident. In addition to that vehicle, the Virginia Garcia staff relies on another vehicle to ferry patients without a car to and from appointments, parenting classes, diabetes classes and even to appointments at the offices of our cooperating doctors. So when both vehicles started to rack up monthly repair bills at an alarming rate, it presented a real problem; a problem that was not in the budget.

Enter the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund. The Friends of Virginia Garcia campaign, started with the help of the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund, had brought together our inaugural class of 88 “Friends,” each of whom had donated $1,000. Their support, together with a match from the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund, gave the clinic more than enough to purchase the two vehicles so desperately needed by our staff.

The funding from Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund helped Virginia Garcia in another crucial role. Many of our patients suffer from diabetes. Education and preventative care is the key to keeping them healthy. Virginia Garcia piloted a very successful diabetes education program and found a bi-lingual, bi-cultural teacher named Doña Isabel, who won the trust of the patients. While some programs struggle to get people to attend their classes, Virginia Garcia has the opposite problem. Doña Isabel’s classes are so popular we have trouble getting the people to go home after the class. The Friends of Virginia Garcia funding made it possible to continue employing our diabetes educator, allowing this well-needed education series to continue.

The Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center was established in 1975 following the tragic death of six year-old Virginia Garcia of Mission, Texas. Accompanying her farm worker parents to Oregon to pick strawberries, Virginia Garcia died from blood poisoning from a simple foot wound due to the unavailability of cultural and language appropriate medical services. The budget for the 2007-2008 fiscal year projects 275 employees will serve 50,000 patients in 150,000 visits. No one is turned away for inability to pay.

Chris Shine, Executive Director of the Virginia Garcia Memorial Foundation commented, “This funding was not just another few dollars in an otherwise large budget, but made a real difference in the types of services we offer to our patients. The MCM Fund helped us to actually fund, start to finish, not one, but two service components that met our program where it has its greatest needs”. The Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center would like to thank the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund for the generous matching grant, but most of all, our patients would like to give thanks for services that will continue due to this generous gift.