1 of 2
Illustration by Justin Tran
2 of 2
Rendering by Worley Associates Architects/courtesy Goochland Free Clinic
Goochland residents may soon have one central facility available for all their critical needs. That’s the goal of the Goochland Free Clinic and Family Services and its $5.85 million fundraising campaign to build a complex combining 11 critical assistance programs under one roof, and to endow the clinic. The programs currently are housed in three different locations along a 2-mile stretch of highway. The medical clinic is in the back of the Goochland County Administration Building, 1800 Sandy Hook Road. Family services and offices are in an old residence at 3001 River Road West, and the registration office is in a barn-like building at its rear. The clothes closet is in the basement of a brick building at 2948 River Road West. According to the nonprofit’s staff, those sites are insufficient and inconvenient for the amount of people in need of care.
“Our vision is to be a one-stop shop with integrated services,” says Sally Graham, the executive director of the Goochland Free Clinic.
Illustration by Justin Tran
The nonprofit provides the only emergency housing in Goochland, and also assists with critical home repair, financial assistance and financial counseling, a clothes closet, a food pantry (which feeds 150 families twice a week), medical transportation, case management, and domestic violence and sexual assault programs. The clinic division provides free medical, dental, and mental health services.
With no public transportation available in the county and many clients having no access to a vehicle of their own, a central location is critical, according to the free clinic.
“It would be perfect to have everything in one place,” says Michael Waddy, a Goochland resident who gets a variety of services through the clinic, including his medications, food and help with some emergency home repair.
Waddy says that without the clinic, he would be unable to afford the medications he needs to manage his blood pressure and diabetes. The clinic has arrangements with local pharmacies in which the clients pay $5 for a prescription and the clinic pays the rest.
Construction of the 20,000-square-foot building is planned to take place at the current site of the Family Services offices at 3001 River Road West. The existing main building will be transformed into emergency housing. The site was selected because it’s in the center of Goochland, making its use convenient for most area residents.
Illustration by Justin Tran
Expected costs for construction are $5.85 million, which includes a $1 million endowment for the clinic. The fundraising effort has been boosted with two $500,000 grants — one from the Harrison Foundation, and a challenge grant from the Cabell Foundation that the clinic is working to match. Other funding sources include individual gifts and community donations, and the county is working with the campaign to waive permit fees.
Graham notes that there is a substantial population of low-income and uninsured individuals and families in Goochland. The resources are there to serve them, but the space is not. Currently, food pantry donations are stored in a basement whose steps are dangerously steep, and clothing donations are overflowing from various closets. Medication counseling is provided in hallways. Current accommodations lack a cohesiveness, which clinic leaders believe is necessary for patients’ “privacy, dignity, and safety,” according to the campaign’s outreach letter. A new building would mean easy access to multiple service sectors.
“It’s completely for the convenience of our patients,” says Pamela Richardson, a physician who started as a volunteer with the free clinic in 2006 and has served on its staff since 2009.
She says most of the clients work two, even three jobs, but have no health benefits. She says that even with Affordable Care Act coverage, many people obtain policies only to find that massive deductibles make their actual health care needs unaffordable.
Illustration by Justin Tran
“They are very happy to get the quality of care that we are able to provide,” she says.
The free clinic and family services resulted from a merger of Goochland Fellowship and Family Services with the Goochland Free Clinic in 2007.
Goochland Fellowship and Family Services began in 1952, with volunteers administering cod liver oil to students and providing transportation, clothing and social services to the needy.
A ministry of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, the free clinic opened in 1998 and provided mental and dental services once a week in the basement of the county’s old courthouse building.
Since the merger, demand has grown. Today, there are 450 volunteers and 30 salaried staff working five days a week. Volunteers served more than 15,000 in the past year.
The free clinic worked with more than 1,700 people in 2015. Without the clinic and family services, 2,200 Goochland residents “would have suffered from food insecurity, poor health and unsafe living conditions,” according to the nonprofit’s 2015 annual report.
They learned to make do and to adjust. The clinic was in a basement, but it conveniently came equipped with dental equipment (it was the old health department), and the former evidence room of the county sheriff’s department worked as a clinic because it had no windows, so it offered privacy. But demand continued to outpace available facilities.
“We knew as soon as we merged that there were no buildings big enough for us in Goochland,” says Graham. “It was always an issue. We started planning strategically [immediately after the merger].”
The fundraising campaign had reached about 71 percent of its goal by early October. The campaign chair is Lisa Luck, whose family has earned the title of Individual Philanthropist of the Year by the National Philanthropy Day Nominations Committee and the board of the Association of Fundraising Professionals Central Virginia Chapter. GFCFS also boasts recognition by the National Federal of Quality Assurance and the Service Enterprise Initiative, which Graham points out “only about 50 percent of nonprofits are even eligible for.” Considering fundraising continues on schedule, campaign leaders hope to break ground by the summer of 2017.
