Suzie Russum (right), a volunteer for the Free Clinic of Our Towns at Ada Jenkins Center, interviews prospective client Amanda Marie. The clinic provides free basic medical care to the uninsured. (Nathan Hartle photo)

By NATHAN HARTLE
DavidsonNews.net

As times get tougher, Ada Jenkins Center on Gamble Street on Davidson’s West Side is finding its mission more urgent than ever.

“Our role is to help people break the cycle of poverty,” says Georgia Krueger, who has been the center’s permanent executive director since December. “We help people in crisis.”

The center runs numerous health care, education, and family services designed to do this. Those services are increasingly in demand these days: Center officials say say the number of clients is up 50 percent.  At the same time, the center is coping with a big cut in United Way funding – $100,000 a year in a $927,720 annual budget – as well as declining donations and tighter purse strings at grant-giving organizations.

Ms. Krueger says the center’s staff has seen former donors among its newer clients, as money gets tighter and those who previously had extra to give are now forced to seek aid themselves.

BACKGROUND

Created in its present form in 1998, the center is named for Miss Ada Jenkins, the school principal whose efforts led to the construction of the building and its completion in 1937. Originally a school for African-Americans, the building was constructed to replace a schoolhouse in the area that had burned down. The center has fallen into and out of use over the years, serving as a community center among other roles.

Today’s Ada Jenkins Center, created to serve the needs of the community’s less fortunate, is overseen by a board of directors and coordinates 19 programs serving 5,000 clients a year. Among these are crisis and job assistance, computer and language training, and medical and dental clinics. All services are free of charge.

One popular program hosted by the center is the Free Clinic of Our Towns, which provides free basic medical care to the uninsured. This organization is comprised of volunteers, among them local physicians and medical professionals as well as Davidson College students; It serves residents of Cornelius, Davidson, Huntersville, and Mooresville. Clinics are held at the Ada Jenkins center on Thursday evenings from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Patients must provide valid ID and proof of address, and must register by 7 p.m. The clinic can serve a limited number of clients per evening (35), and operates on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Ms. Krueger says the clinic is working on joining the NC Association of Free Clinics.

Free clinic volunteer Jenny Yang stocks one of the clinic's medicine cabinets at the Ada Jenkins Center. The clinic is dependent on donations for its medical supplies. (Nathan Hartle photo)

ECONOMIC PAIN

In this critical time, as the Ada Jenkins center finds its place in the community becoming more important, it is also seeing its funding decrease.

Fewer donors can afford to give, and grants are harder to secure. Recently the United Way informed the center that it was cutting off a three-year long focus area grant after only one year. Ms. Krueger says the center doesn’t yet know what the implications will be for the other general funding it receives from the United Way.

Some help, at least, is on the way. The center recently received a grant from $18,870 from the Foundation for the Carolinas’ Critical Needs Response Fund. The grant is designated, Ms. Krueger says, “to help people with shelter, food, emergency kinds of things.” Similar grants have been received by other charitable organizations in the region to help offset the growing demand for their services.

For now, the Ada Jenkins Center’s programs continue as its organizers and volunteers learn to do more with less. The financial troubles facing so many nonprofit organizations have given them “lots of opportunities to do things in new ways,” Ms. Krueger says.

“It’s an amazing place,” says Ms. Krueger, who decided to stay on as the center’s permanent executive director after serving as its interim director since October. “No two days are ever alike.”

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

More information on the Ada Jenkins center can be found at www.adajenkins.org or by calling (704) 896-0471.

Ada Jenkins Center relies on volunteers for most of its programs. To find how to volunteer at the center, visit the center’s website.