Our clinic has established a broad base of professional and community volunteers, developed a steering committee/Board of Directors and an operational budget, established nonprofit, tax-exempt status, and developed a fundraising committee. As a grassroots organization there are many goals to accomplish and tasks to complete. Help is always needed in all areas of development.
Currently, the clinic is open on Monday and Tuesday evenings. We are located within the All Saints Episcopal Church. Though located at the church, the clinic is a separate entity with non-profit, tax-exempt status. Our clinic serves low income, uninsured and underinsured individuals and families including the large migrant/refugee population residing in the community.
With your help, our vision has become a reality!
Our History
In 2002 Marie Blanchard, a retired registered nurse, looked around the Boise Bench where she attends church and knew in her heart that there was a problem among the people of this community, and she was determined to find a way to help fix it. First, she enlisted the help of a group of Boise State University nursing students to conduct surveys, interviewing over 200 residents of the Bench. What Marie suspected was now documented to be true—this community had a strong need for access to low cost or no cost health care!
Marie then set about recruiting help. Over the next year, six dedicated community nurses met monthly to write policies, gather equipment, write grants for funding and to recruit additional volunteers. The parishioners of All Saints Episcopal Church donated space in their building to house the clinic. Parishioner Bob Campbell volunteered his services and almost single handedly remodeled the space into a working clinic. Through the combined efforts of dedicated volunteers and multitudes of small but precious donations of time and money, The Friendship Clinic opened its doors in October 2004.
Our clinic is still supported by dedicated health care professionals including physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers, and other members of the community who volunteer their highly skilled medical services and other talents necessary to keep our clinic open. The Friendship Clinic also proudly partners with Idaho’s institutions of higher education to provide supervised training for student nurses, physicians and physician assistants.
