Good Samaritan Clinic: The People Who Made Care Possible in DeLand
Good Samaritan Clinic’s history contains a particularly generous moment: a dentist offered the contents and location of her office so more neighbors could receive care. It is one chapter in a DeLand story built by people choosing to put their professional skills to work for the community.
On Plymouth Avenue, that shared commitment has a lasting home. The clinic brings medical and dental care to uninsured neighbors through volunteer providers and the people who make their work possible.
The first patient was the beginning
The clinic’s history begins with a local need identified in 2006. Mary Gusky became administrator and Dr. Larry Gilliard medical director. Patient consultations began in October 2007.
Those names and milestones are worth remembering. A community institution starts when particular people accept responsibility for turning concern into something another person can actually use.
The first consultation represented the meeting of many kinds of preparation. Professional knowledge needed a setting. A patient needed someone ready to listen. People behind the scenes helped bring both into the same room.
A dental office became a gift to the community
In 2009, Herminia Rodriguez offered her dental office’s location and contents. Good Samaritan’s dental work began in Orange City, and the medical and dental clinics came together on Plymouth Avenue in 2013.
I find that gift especially moving because it was so useful. An office carries the tools and setting of a working profession. Offering it gave the next chapter of care something concrete to build upon.
Generosity often becomes most powerful when a person recognizes what they are particularly able to contribute. Here, an existing place of professional care became the foundation for a wider local purpose.
A neighbor is more than an insurance category
The clinic’s mission centers on primary medical and dental care for uninsured people in the community. That description is clear, but the people it describes have lives extending far beyond the appointment.
They are parents, workers, relatives, friends, and neighbors. Being able to speak with a professional belongs within those ordinary lives. Care has meaning because of the person who receives it and the relationships surrounding them.
I appreciate an institution that brings those neighbors into the center of local attention. The need is close to home, and the response is made from skills already present in the community.
The team behind the donated hour
A volunteer clinician’s time is valuable. So is the preparation that allows that time to serve someone well. Records, supplies, rooms, communication, and the work of coordinating people all belong in the story.
There is real skill in making generosity dependable. The person handling a practical detail may not be the one most visible in the appointment, but their contribution helps the whole experience exist.
That shared effort is one of the things I admire about Good Samaritan. The clinic gives many people a way to offer what they know. A profession, an administrative ability, a donation, or a dependable stretch of time can become part of the same expression of care.
A faith-rooted mission with a local embrace
Good Samaritan’s mission is explicitly Christian, grounded in service and the love of Christ. Its expression is concrete: people bringing their knowledge and resources together for neighbors who need care.
The House Next Door and the Neighborhood Center of West Volusia make different contributions to local wellbeing. Their stories reveal how many forms community care can take.
Good Samaritan’s particular contribution began with people who saw a need and put their abilities behind an answer. From the first consultation to the gift of a dental office, its history gives that commitment names, places, and a lasting presence in DeLand.
It is one of the quieter, deeply human stories in Volusia County Stories.
Questions about this place
Who helped begin Good Samaritan Clinic in DeLand?
The story identifies Mary Gusky and Larry Gilliard among the people behind the clinic’s beginnings in 2006. Its first consultations followed in 2007.
What made the clinic’s early development a community story?
Professional knowledge, donated resources and local generosity helped turn an idea into a place for care. Herminia Rodriguez’s gift of a dental office is one concrete part of that history.