SFC began as an outreach by West Salem Foursquare Church, with the vision of providing free medical care to community members who were not covered by insurance. For the next four years, Walker Middle School offered the use of their gym to have the free medical clinics on Saturdays. Based on a first come first served basis, some individuals would begin lining up the night before in order to save their place to be medically treated the next day.

SFC moved into the Northgate Center, located on Portland Road. With the ability to keep items in the building and be open on a regular basis, we expanded services from two clinics per month to ten clinics per month. The same year, we partnered with Trinity Covenant Church in South Salem to open a clinic on some Saturdays. These locations are no longer used by Salem Free Clinics.

With support from Salem Alliance Church, we moved into our permanent facility inside Broadway Commons located at 1300 Broadway St NE, Suite 104. We were able to adapt the beautiful new space to fit our patients needs and set up a system for appointments instead of having patients wait in line. A dental facility was immediately built within the new space with the goal of treating the many people who had come with serious dental concerns.

A partnership with Corban University Graduate Counseling Program began to establish Salem Free Counseling Clinic. Graduate counseling students began to offer free counseling to clients without counseling insurance. In the same year, we also partnered with motivated community members from Dallas, Oregon, to start Polk Community Free Clinic. Volunteers continue to see patients two Saturdays a month located at Trinity Lutheran Church in Dallas.

With the rise of diabetes and the many complications that come with it, SFC began a specialty program specifically designed for patients with diabetes. With this model, we’ve been able to offer focused, repeated care for patients with diabetes helping with education, medications, diet, physical therapy, and podiatry.

In 2017, we started a Patient Navigator Program to help our patients navigate other resources and programs offered throughout our community. In 2018 we celebrated the hiring of our first ever paid provider. Having a provider on staff contributed to a 14% increase in patient appointments provided each year and more continuity of care for patients when needed. In 2019, we hired our first ever paid dentist to provide consistent dental clinics at least once a week.