St. Luke’s Free Medical Clinic is named after the disciple and physician, Luke. The Clinic provides medical care, medications and pastoral care to the uninsured in Spartanburg County.
The Rev. Dr. Clay Turner, rector of Church of the Advent, brought the seed for this ministry to our community from Roanoke, Virginia. He had seen the tremendous impact that free clinic services had on that community and saw a similar need in Spartanburg. Dr. Turner, after talking with local physicians and other interested citizens to gauge need and interest for the idea of a free clinic, invited the director of the Roanoke clinic to Spartanburg in the spring of 1991, to share her experience in providing health care to the uninsured.
Doctors, nurses, clergy, pharmacists, dentists and lay volunteers came forward to give their time, energy and expertise to the mission of St. Luke’s. Mary Black Memorial Hospital and Spartanburg Regional Hospital offered free diagnostic procedures, hospitalizations and surgeries for the patients who would qualify for services.
Mt. Moriah Baptist Church provided the Clinic’s first building adjacent to the church, rent-free. Funds for renovations to the building were raised from the community. The clinic opened its doors in August of 1992, thanks to the efforts of many.
!n 2000, eighteen descendants of John Bomar Cleveland, led by the efforts of Dexter Cleveland, donated the Georgia Cleveland Homebuilding to St. Luke’s. This beautiful old building was constructed in 1907 and housed the Spartanburg Hospital until November of 1920 when it was sold to John Bomar Cleveland. He established a home for aging women in memory of his wife, Georgia Alden Cleveland and the home was in operation in that capacity until 1998.
The building was renovated in 2000 and the Clinic began seeing patients in its new home in April of 2001. Using a volunteer/staff model, medical care and prescriptions are provided to those in Spartanburg County who have no other place to go.
In 2017, the Clinic served 2200 patients. By leveraging partnerships and financial support, St. Luke’s provided almost $12,000,000 in services last year on a budget of $947,000.
The First Tee is addressing the major challenges facing young people in our country. These challenges include the fact that eleven million young people do not have a safe place to be after the school bell rings, one in three will reach adulthood never having a positive mentor and more than a million students are leaving our schools and not graduating each year.
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We address these challenges by providing safe places with trained caring adults to deliver programs that seamlessly weave golf and character-building activities into each lesson. These lessons transcend the game, giving young people critical life skills to help them build successful, productive lives and to achieve their dreams. We introduce the life-long sport of golf and our character education platform at golf facilities, elementary schools, and youth service organizations.
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We would like to thank the Dr. C. Tyrone Gilmore Charity Golf Classic for providing the required support necessary to make a true impact on the lives of our young people. By playing in this event we are able to provide Rodrick Brown and Kamryn Sainvil with financial aid to participate in our Life Skills Experience Programming. It is our hope to continue to grow this program in Spartanburg County and impact the lives of many more young people of Spartanburg District 7.
To learn more about how you are making an impact in your community, visit our website at www.thefirstteeupstate.org.
