Earlier this week, Phillip Crosby got a check-up from Nurse Ridgeo at the Poverello Health Center, a free medical clinic.

“A little over two years ago, I had like a minor heart attack,” Crosby said. “It had been 15 years before that since I had seen a doctor. I was uninsurable, so my place of employment did not carry insurance and I could not afford insurance.”

The free clinic opened 20 years ago. Sister James Peter Ridgeo, a nurse at Poverello, said it was started out of necessity, since Ridgeo said many in the area couldn’t get insured, but needed health care.

Poverello has provided 20,000 people with free medical care.

Sister Ridgeo, who started the clinic with Dr. Suzanne Lammana and Sister Dolly Bush, remembers their first patient.

“We were three women all over this poor man,” Ridgeo said. “He called us on the pay phone, said he wanted to thank us, church ladies, for helping him, and he would tell his friends. And that’s how it spread.”

More than $250,000 is donated each year to keep the free clinic open.

In the pandemic, Poverello learned to switch to telehealth to take care of their patients to continue to offer hope and healing to those most in need.

“Without this care, I would have probably passed away,” Crosby said.