The State College free clinic Centre Volunteers in Medicine is in the midst of a capital campaign to raise $10 million. The organization has already purchased a building with early donations.
CVIM’s new building will be almost twice as big as its current space. Executive Director Cheryl White said once the building is renovated, it will allow them to provide additional essential services.
“Our new building is going to have a room dedicated to vision care. It’s something that we don’t offer right now, but it’ll give us —assuming we can find grant funding to buy the eye exam equipment — we’ll have the flexibility to add things like that,” White said.
White said they’ve seen an uptick in patients recently. Some had been putting off care because of COVID. Others learned about CVIM through its vaccination clinics.
The new building will also allow CVIM to decrease its facility-related expenses and put more of its budget toward patient care.
“We currently rent our space, we don’t own the space. So we have a large outlay of cash every month. And it’s always been my goal since getting here 11 years ago to have an affordable long term space,” White said.
White said construction on the new building could start as soon as April or May. CVIM’s hope is to reach its $10 million capital campaign goal by September 30 of this year. So far, they’ve raised $6 million.