The Pin and Brew, a coffee kiosk in front of the Pin and Cue in Whitefish, now is donating 100 percent of its profit to Shepherd’s Hand Clinic.

The kiosk will use the new Shepherd’s Hand Blend from Montana Coffee Traders, which will give the free medical clinic an additional boost. More than $2 from each bag of Shepherd’s Hand Blend will benefit the clinic.

“The whole reason we built a kiosk was to make it a nonprofit, to team up and benefit the Flathead Valley,” said Brett Pierce, one of the Pin and Cue owners. “This is a team effort to help the community.

“It was a perfect fit,” he said of the partnership with Shepherd’s Hand Clinic.

The clinic also partnered with Montana Coffee Traders to offer the special blend — an organically grown medium roast — as a way of helping the nonprofit clinic become self-sustaining.

The kiosk is open from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. seven days a week.

Shepherd’s Hand Clinic was established in 1995 as a nonprofit organization to provide free medical care for people in the North Valley area without health insurance. Since then the clinic has expanded to include a community meal and a wellness program every Monday at Christ Lutheran Church in Whitefish. The meal begins at 5:30 p.m.

The clinic is supported entirely by private donations and operated by a network of dedicated medical professionals and lay people that are a testament to the spirit and strength of volunteerism in the community, according to Meg Erickson, executive director of Shepherd’s Hand.

“Shepherd’s Hand has a long tradition of building partnerships within our community and are thrilled to partner with the Pin and Cue,” Erickson said. “We believe that community is strengthened when individual need within the community is shared by the whole community. The support of businesses like the Pin and Cue are vital for the sustainability of Shepherd’s Hand work within our community.”

The clinic has had a 30 percent increase in patient visits in the last 18 months and logged more than 1,700 patient visits last year.

Erickson and her husband, Jay Erickson, the clinic’s medical director, founded Shepherd’s Hand as an outreach ministry of Christ Lutheran Church to provide access to health care for those without medical insurance.

A little more than a year ago Shepherd’s Hand received its own 501(c) 3 status from the Internal Revenue Service, allowing it to operate as a separate nonprofit organization.

The clinic recently launched a permanent endowment fund with the goal of raising $1 million by 2015. Revenue from that fund eventually will provide for the organizational costs of the clinic “so that our focus can remain on patient and community care,” Erickson said.

The clinic continues to be based at Christ Lutheran as a faith-based ministry and recently expanded into space in the church previously used for a day-care program.

To learn more about Shepherd’s Hand go to www.shepherdshand.com; call 260-3502 or email info@shepherdshand.com.