GOSHEN — It was a festive atmosphere at the Maple City Health Care Center in Goshen Saturday afternoon as center employees and clients joined together to celebrate the center’s 25th year of service to the Goshen community.
“This is our big 25th anniversary celebration,” said Dr. James Nelson Gingerich, a founder and practicing physician at the center. “We started seeing patients here in 1989, and so we’re celebrating being in the community and being part of the community and connected for the last 25 years.”
According to Gingerich, the center, located at 213 Middlebury St., is a health care home for people who live primarily in the north and east neighborhoods of Goshen. Through its operation, the center provides 45 medical, dental and behavioral health services to accomplish its mission of fostering a healthy community.
“We have about 5,000 patients who see this as a medical home,” Gingerich said of center. “That doesn’t mean we see all of them every year, but we have about that many patients.”
As part of their 25th anniversary celebration, center employees invited the public to tour the facility from 2 to 3:30 p.m., with refreshments and a reception following at the Boys and Girls Club of Goshen, 306 Crescent St., from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Rounding out Saturday’s celebration was a special program of storytelling from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., also at the Boys and Girls Club.
“We’re giving tours, we’re going to have a little program later that shows some of our patients and some folks talking about their experience at the health care center and a little bit about our history and a little bit about our future,” Gingerich said. “But mostly it’s about interacting and mingling with our neighbors and our friends and having time to talk and review some of the stories of our last 25 years and have some food while we’re at it.”
Since helping their first patient 25 years ago, Gingerich noted that the center’s physicians and nurse practitioners have offered over 189,000 office visits to clients within the Goshen area. The center currently employs 39 people.
“Goshen has been just a wonderful place to be and this has been a wonderful neighborhood to be in and this organization has been a wonderful place to work with,” Gingerich said. “So it’s just a very exciting time for us, and we’re anticipating an even more exciting future.”
For more information about the Maple City Health Care Center, visit the center’s website at www.mchcc.com.
