Whether you are a patient, provider, board member, staff member, volunteer, or community member we invite you to share how the Health Center in your community has impacted you, your family, and friends. If you are a community that doesn’t have a Health Center but would like to establish one, we want to hear how it would benefit your residents and the community as a whole. If you work/volunteer for an organization that partners with a Health Center we want to hear from you, too! Please share with us how that partnership is “Powering a Healthier Community.”
Please be sure to include your full name, email address, phone number, the Health Center you are involved with and your short story. We welcome your photos, videos, and handwritten testimonials, as well! (If you need assistance with audio or video recording, let us know.)
You can email your story and information to dlawrence@mpca.net or use the Form below. (Your contact information will not appear on this page for privacy.) Also please sign this release form authorizing us to use your story, photo, video, and/or audio recording, and then mail it to MPCA at 7215, Westshire Drive, Lansing, MI or fax it to 517.381.8008.
Thank you for helping MPCA continue to promote Health Centers in Michigan!
I serve on the Board of Community Health Centers in Ingham County, Michigan. I got involved with the Health Centers during a time when I was homeless. I was staying in a shelter and the Health Bus would visit every week. Some of the staff on the bus got me involved with the Hope Group which was helping the service providers learn how to work with homeless people. Through that I got to know all the staff and they finally asked me to join the Board.
I was discouraged when I was homeless because it seemed like no one was fighting for homeless people. The staff of the Homeless Clinic was different. They would do all they could for me. If they didn’t see me for awhile they would get concerned and I could tell they were genuinely relieved to see me again.
While I was homeless I learned about the importance of oral health. If your teeth are in bad shape you’ve got infections, you can’t eat right, it affects your whole health. It’s great that the Ingham County Health Centers have an adult dental clinic. The problem is we need more.
In September 2007, after tremendous encouragement and support from the clinic Board and core donors, as well as many community, state, and county organizations, CCC (and actually the greater metropolitan community) was awarded the Federally Qualified Health Center designation. This added strength to the health care safety net in Detroit and sustainability to CCC’s mission to show and share the love of God, as seen in the good news of Jesus Christ, by providing integrated, affordable, and quality health care to those who need it most.
Coming to Mexican Village was an unexpected but exhilarating twist in the road. I always knew that I was called to live and serve in my hometown of Detroit, but this was not the Detroit that I knew. Facing the challenges of learning a new language and culture put a sharper focus on the common needs and mutual strengths that the staff, volunteers and patients all share. It has forced me to remember that if we aren’t really partners – in communication, in decision making, in spreading the financial burden – none of us will truly win.
At the same time, watching a grassroots initiative spread across race, religion, and culture to gain a foothold as a vital community resource shows me what Southeast Michigan can do when we truly work together! I truly cherish the opportunity that God and CCC have afforded me to be a part of this mission.
I was so happy to see Dr. Best’s posting about the work Covenant Care is doing in Southwest Detroit. MATEC Michigan is proud to include Covenant Care in our Targeted Clinic program, as they seek to provide desperately needed outreach and care to persons living with or at risk for HIV/AIDS.