Empowering Our Community With Good Health
Mark your calendar for Movers of Mountains luncheon honoring Don Lucey, October 20, 2022, 11:30-1:00, at Starmount Forest Country Club, Greensboro
Simply put, Dr. Don Lucey has led an extraordinary life—and thousands of people are living better because of it. For 34 years Don served patients through his urology practice in Raleigh while teaching clinical urology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and still found time for frequent missions to clinics in Vietnam and in Nicaragua where he both performed surgery and trained young doctors.
In 1985 Don tackled needs closer to home: he founded the Urban Ministries Raleigh’s Open Door Clinic, North Carolina’s first clinic to provide free medical care to uninsured patients. Other cities soon followed Raleigh’s example, and free and charitable clinics started cropping up all over the state. With an urgent need for coordination, Don stepped in and helped to found the North Carolina Association of Free & Charitable Clinics, which now has 72 members, including Mustard Seed Community Health.
After he retired Don and his wife Shirley moved to Greensboro to be close to family, but Don didn’t sit still for long: as Mustard Seed came into being with its innovative approach to community-based care Don was right there, serving as one of the clinic’s earliest board members. Mustard Seed's tagline "empowering our community with good health", which tells the story of community health workers, social workers, and physician teaming up to respond to neighbors, could as easily serve as the tagline for Don’s life of generous and joyful service. Thank you Don!