Feast for St. Nick: Saturday, April 18

If you’ve ever paid a health insurance bill, your brain and bank account have felt some significant pain. Imagine, though, if your annual income barely covers your rent, food, car, gas and your children’s clothes, and that you’re ineligible for state or federal benefits.

When uninsured working folks and their families get sick, where can they get help?

The St. Nicholas Family Clinic. Located at 1901 Kentucky Ave., the St. Nicholas clinic welcomes working folks in need to simply walk in — free of charge — and receive the care they need.

Show your support for the clinic — and enjoy a great meal — at the first annual Feast for St. Nick. It's set for 7 p.m., Saturday, April 18. The cost is $75.

All you need to do is email the event's chairperson Dee Dee Whittaker to reserve your spot and plan to enjoy drinks, hors d'oeuvres, a catered dinner, dessert and a take-home gift at one of these 11 host homes:

Bill & Mary Lee Anderson
Bruce Brockenborough & Mary Thorsby
Tom & Cindy Butterbaugh
Mike &Caroline Cappock
Stan & Missy Eckenberg
Bill & Susan Evans
Tony & Lucy Milliano
Greg & Nan Waldrop
Dan & Laura Jane Walsh
Gary & Lisa Zakutney
David Lucht & Stefani Graves

David and Stefani, by the way, will donate 20 percent of any artwork they sell that evening at their Cowango Studios.

With the unaffordable cost of health care coverage, St. Nicholas Executive Director Anita Wyatt says she knows exactly what her patients are going through.

“I used to be a single mom and had to buy my own health insurance, which was $400 a month,” Wyatt recalls. “My needs were on the back burner because I had to keep going to get my kids through school, pay rent and so forth. I know from personal experience that I would have had to drop it if it got much higher.

“We’re talking about lower middle class people — even middle class people,” Wyatt adds. “Even if you have health insurance, one catastrophe can wipe you out financially.”

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