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8%


ACCESS 8% FAITH-BASED ‘What God Desires’: Top-Notch Care


One in five: That’s how many people Dr. Grant Scarborough estimates are without health insurance in Columbus. A steady job is no guarantee of health care, either. “Hard-working folks making twenty or thirty thousand dollars a year still can’t afford insurance for a family of four,” he says.


But most of them can spend $25 — which might be all it costs to be seen by a doctor at MercyMed. Founded in Columbus a year ago by Scarborough, MercyMed provides affordable, professional health care for people who might not be able to get it any other way.


Located on Second Avenue, in the North Highlands / Bibb City neighborhoods, MercyMed charges based on what patients are able to afford. MercyMed does checkups and provides medications, “but sometimes people need more than just a pill,” Scarborough explains. “We try to fill their physical, emotional and spiritual needs. Some of the folks we see come from poor communities where physical and sexual abuse, drug abuse and mental illness are common, but no matter where you come from, you’re created in the image of God,


so you’re valuable. We want to give these people the best very best we can so they can stay in their jobs and continue to live their lives.”


The quality of care and the spiritual component of MercyMed’s work appealed to the Columbus family who supported them with a grant from their endowed Donor Advised Fund administered by the Community Foundation. They gave in honor of their son, who volunteered at the first MercyMed clinic Scarborough helped get off the ground in Augusta.


“Usually we meet twice a year as a family and talk informally about how we want to use the earnings of our Fund,” explains a member of the family, who wishes to remain anonymous. “The Community Foundation was an organized, well-oiled machine already in place that could evaluate organizations and make the gift, and that really appealed to us. We didn’t have to take care of the day-to-day workings of a foundation, yet we could still maintain enough control to ensure the gifts were made to organizations that were compatible with our values and our desire to help.”


Support for Faith-Based Initiatives totaled $570,048 and included six grants in support of International Friendship Ministries, annual support for Evangel Temple and the Catholic Diocese of Savannah, funding for Christ Community Church’s Jeeah’s Hope program and St. Luke United Methodist Church’s Outreach Ministry Food Pantry, and 23 grants totaling $48,450 in support of Young Life programs nationwide. Above, Grant Scarborough tends a young patient.


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