60 years of community health center excellence
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 1 year, 1 month AGO
Centers like Moses Lake Community Health Center, shown here, are celebrating 60 years of serving communities regardless of insurance.
CHERYL SCHWEIZER/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | August 6, 2025 1:20 AM
MOSES LAKE — This week is National Health Center Week, and the Moses Lake Community Health Center is celebrating.
“Moses Lake Community Health Center is proud to be part of a movement that has transformed healthcare delivery for underserved communities,” Sheila Berschauer, CEO of Moses Lake Community Health Center, wrote in a statement. “We celebrate our dedicated staff, our resilient patients, and the vital role we play in improving health outcomes in Grant County and beyond.”
MLCHC opened in 1978 and serves more than 32,000 people every year, according to the announcement. Since its opening, it’s expanded to neighboring communities, opening a clinic in Quincy in 2002 and in Ephrata in 2015, said Marketing Director Stephanie Melcher. Services include medical, dental, behavioral health, social services and pharmacy. The clinic in Ephrata offers only dental care, but that could change, Melcher said.
“We were supposed to go into Ephrata and create a clinic … and we were going to start building, but the cost factor kind of deterred that at the time,” Melcher said. “So, we bought an existing building that came up for sale … it used to be a law office and we remodeled that.”
MLCHC still owns other property in Ephrata, Melcher said, and hopes to use that to expand medical services there.
Besides the medical and dental care, MLCHC also administers the Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, program and offers maternity support services. The center has a fourth office in Warden that handles only WIC, Melcher said.
Between the clinics, there are 29 medical providers and 21 dental providers, Melcher wrote in an email to the Columbia Basin Herald.
The first community health centers opened 60 years ago, in 1965, and now number more than 1,500 in all 50 states, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers. They serve a wide range of clients, with or without insurance. Uninsured patients can pay on a sliding scale according to their ability, but the center accepts many insurance plans. Most of the staff get their health care from MLCHC, Melcher said. Nevertheless, there’s a misconception that community health centers are somehow lower quality than private clinics, which is completely untrue, she said.
“All three of our locations are great buildings,” she said. “They’re clean and kept up … We have wonderful providers, and our staff is all local community members. It's very community-based and it’s a great place to go.”
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Quincy National Night Out scales down
QUINCY — Quincy’s National Night Out was more compact this year, which worked out well, said QPD Sgt. Joe Westby, who’s in charge of event planning for the Quincy Police Department. “National Night Out is a big event, and the fact that we’re able to shrink it up is like a breath of fresh air,” Westby said. “If you're always doing the same thing, it's kind of nice to switch things up and see how it works.” National Night Out took place Thursday on the block of C Street next to the police station, a shift from previous years when it was held at Lauzier Park. The smaller space meant fewer emergency vehicles for children to explore, but it also meant less walking for attendees. Grant County Fire District 5 brought a fire truck, and the Grant County Sheriff’s Office had a patrol boat. Renew, the Grant County behavioral health agency, had a booth and so did Quincy Partnership for Youth. Veterans Operation Creation sang the national anthem, and the Quincy Animal Shelter brought kittens that piled over each other making friends with passersby. As before, the QPD served grilled hot dogs.
Quincy Police retirements leave big shoes to fill
QUINCY — There are some big shoes to fill at the Quincy Police Department. “We’re losing 48 years of experience between them,” Quincy Police Chief Ryan Green said at the retirement party for Capt. Jorge Trujillo and Det. Damon Powell Thursday. Trujillo, who grew up in Sunnyside, has been with QPD for 19 years, he said, coming on as a patrol officer fresh out of the military. From there he served as a field training officer, a detective and finally captain. “I consider him my left-hand man,” Green said. “He runs the operations side of the house … He knows the agency very well, and he knows the community.” Trujillo has some projects around the house to tackle now that he’s retired, he said.
Big fun on a small scale
Wheat Land Communities’ Fair opens Thursday
RITZVILLE — The Wheat Land Communities’ Fair isn’t as big or as flashy as some of the county fairs around central Washington, but the folks who keep it going like it just the way it is. “It’s somewhere you can go and get an old-time traditional feeling, and you’re comfortable letting your kids roam the grounds and experience all that it has to offer,” said Board Member Lori Williams. “It’s more of a feeling than (one) specific thing,” The fair starts Thursday in Ritzville and runs through Sunday. Starting Friday, the 56th Ritzville Rodeo will take place alongside the fair at the rodeo grounds. This year the entertainment budget was expanded, Williams said, to be able to offer more fun that’s covered by the cost of admission. For the kids, there’s face painting, balloon art, Lego crafts, races, contests and games. Children can also ride on a little train towed around the fairgrounds behind a tractor.