ORANGE PARK – Nothing about The Way Free Medical Clinic should have happened.

It was impossible to find a new home big enough to accommodate the demand for free medical and dental services for those without adequate or no insurance.

Even if you found a place, there wasn’t a way to raise enough money to make it happen.

Other challenges included getting enough people to support the mission and finding enough volunteers to keep it operational.

But step-by-step, miracle-by-miracle, The Way turned the impossible into a reality.

Call it divine intervention.

“I feel like I’m dreaming,” said Executive Director Don Fann, “a dream come true.”

The clinic hosted an open house on Aug. 21 at its new 7,300-square-foot building at 302 College Dr. Many who played a role in converting an old commercial building into a medical and dental clinic toured the facility. They saw new equipment and bright smiles. They saw large waiting rooms, four dental bays, a maternity section, a laboratory and an imaging department.

But most of all, they saw hope.

“Right from the get-go, this has been an amazing vision and voyage,” said board member Bob Olson. “Each and every challenge along the way was answered. I do not think this was by accident. I think the will of God and the will of a caring Clay County community was at the heart of all these answers.”

The Way has been working out of a 3,300-square-foot building between the Clay County Courthouse and the Administration Building in Green Cove Springs. Executive Director Don Fann said a new home was desperately needed because the need for care had outgrown the facility, and the value of real estate made the land too valuable.

A call from Karen King gave Fann a solution. She offered a 5,100-square-foot commercial building across from St. Johns River State College for free.

“It was divine intervention,” King said.

Fann said remodeling and expansion would cost $2.6 million even with free land and building.

“When we got this building, I was told, No. 1, you’ll never raise a million dollars in Clay County for something like this,” Fann said. “I was also told that I would have to spend $100,000 to raise $1 million. That’s the formula for development. I said, ‘I’m not going to do that.’”

Fann said The Way spent no money and reached its $2.6 million goal by getting the final $100,000 from the Paul and Claire Reinhold Foundation earlier that morning.

“There’s one person here that without her generosity and vision, we would not be celebrating our success in creating this permanent headquarters facility,” Fann said. “That is Karen King.”

The new facility is centrally located in the county, a block away from the VA offices. One of the four dental chairs will be reserved for veterans. It’s also across the street from the state college, where Fann hopes nursing students will want to gain hands-on experience to earn credit hours.

Fann said a mobile unit will also serve residents of the county's rural areas.

Other astonishing developments kept the project alive. As the list of major contributors grew, so did support from local and state governments. The biggest was a $1.45 million commitment from the State of Florida, started by Rep. Sam Garrison and Sen. Jennifer Bradley and supported by the state legislature.

Garrison said he and Bradley were at the older facility in Green Cove Springs in 2001 when Fann told him about the donation on College Drive. As they talked about money, he said a child being educated about Type 1 diabetes caught Garrison’s attention because his daughter has the same chronic autoimmune disease.

“They were telling stories to these kids in the same way (as his daughter), getting hand-me-down education kits with donated insulin,” Garrison said. “Needless to say, when we walked out of there, I said I’ll be damned if we don’t get this money. There were no lobbyists involved. Nobody was involved except for Jennifer Bradley and me. So thank you to my colleagues. Thank you, Governor DeSantis for saying yes to its appropriation. This was outside the original process of the grants. This was a special deal; he didn’t have to say yes. He could very easily veto it. It’s very rare for counties to be given a grant this size to the appropriation process and survive the veto process. The governor gets all the credit in the world because we can put it in there, but if he doesn’t say yes, it doesn’t happen.”

Divine intervention.

All that’s left is for the county to conduct its occupancy inspection. Once that’s complete, nonprofit organizations will install solar panels on the roof, reducing the electric bill while the rest of the equipment is installed. Fann said The Way should start receiving patients before Oct. 1.

At the end of the open house, Helen Werking of the Riverside Hospital Foundation stood up and announced her organization would release $50,000 to The Way the following morning. Already humbled and overwhelmed, Fann lowered his head and smiled.

Divine intervention.