Western North Carolina Community Health Services to Name Clinic for Activist/Founder

Minnie E. Jones

Staff Reports

Western North Carolina Community Health Services (WNCCHS) will honor community activist Minnie E. Jones by dedicating its new Biltmore Avenue clinic in her name during an open house on August 13. The rechristened “Minnie Jones Health Center,” at 257 Biltmore Avenue, will be WNCCHS’s primary clinic providing comprehensive primary care for adults and children. The dedication ceremony will begin at 5 p.m. at the clinic; the public is encouraged to attend.

Minnie Jones has worked on numerous issues involving voter registration, civil rights, housing, and homelessness projects in Asheville and across the country. In 1994 she, Carlos Gomez, and Dr. Polly Ross founded WNCCHS as a not-for-profit community health center to serve Asheville’s low-income residents.

Since then the organization has provided primary medical care to adults and children who are residents of Buncombe County regardless of their ability to pay. The organization also provides specialty care to an 18-county region of western North Carolina. In January of this year Buncombe County contracted with WNCCHS to take on many of the services the County health department had long provided; as a result the nonprofit has now expanded its care community to serve all residents of Buncombe County.