As printed in the Chattanooga Times Free Press on June 5, 2011

Hope for the Inner City’s Dr. William Roy Mercy Dental Clinic, which for 25 years has served low-income Chattanoogans who are without insurance or access to basic dental care, has received the Tennessee Medical Association’s 2011 Community Service Award.

The award was presented to Allison Taylor, the clinic’s coordinator, at an April 16 ceremony at the Nashville Airport Marriott.

“We are so thrilled and humbled by this honor,” Taylor said. “It is really a tribute to the numerous Chattanooga area dentists, hygienists and dental aides who have dedicated untold hours of volunteer service in the name of Jesus Christ, to serve the poorest of the poor.”

Dr. Roy, the clinic’s late founder and a well-known Chattanooga dentist, envisioned a clinic that would serve low-income people with proper dental care and pain management, following a missions trip to Haiti in the 1980s. Dr. Roy died in 2008, and today the clinic is a joint effort between Hope for the Inner City and the Chattanooga Area Dental Society.

Since its founding in 1985, thousands of desperate patients have left the clinic with reduced pain and newfound hope.

With a professionally stocked dental facility, a full-time coordinator, and a growing pool of volunteer dentists and hygienists, the Dr. William Roy Mercy Dental Clinic brings relief and hope to low-income patients from across Chattanooga. For more information on the clinic, call (423) 698-3178, ext. 106, or visit Hope4theInnercity.org/dental.

Hope for the Inner City is a Christian ministry in East Chattanooga that helps poor people in perpetual crisis become self-sufficient. The organization partners with churches, agencies and businesses to offer emergency assistance and personal development services to Chattanooga’s inner-city poor, including homeownership training, job-readiness training, food and medical assistance.