When Anne Marie McAlester became executive director of Hope Within Ministries in October 2019, she started thinking about changing the sign outside the Elizabethtown organization.

"I felt it didn't communicate everything we are about," she said. So last fall, she applied for a community awareness grant through Hershey Medical Center and received funding for a new sign.

The sign, at 4748 East Harrisburg Pike, now reads "Hope Within Community Health, Counseling & Dental Center."

"We are a free primary medical care clinic, and we've been offering that since 2006," McAlester noted. "In 2014, we added counseling, and we hoped to add dental in (early 2020), but COVID pushed that back until we finally opened our dental clinic in July 2020."

McAlester said the nonprofit provides primary care for uninsured, low-income people in Lancaster, Lebanon and Dauphin counties. "These are people who work part-time hours without benefits or people who have lost their jobs or are unemployed," she explained.

Counseling is offered on a sliding-scale payment plan and is open to anyone, with no income qualifications.

All medical services are provided by volunteers, including a volunteer psychiatrist who comes in twice a month.

"We use a battalion of volunteer medical providers who work full time somewhere else but volunteer here a few hours a month," McAlester noted. "We use graduate students under the supervision of licensed counselors for our mental health counseling."

She added that the organization hopes to expand its dental clinic but is in need of more volunteer dentists.

Over the last year, Hope Within has seen a rising need for its services.

"Across the board, we've seen huge increases. We're seeing people who have lost their jobs, people who are afraid of losing their jobs. We've seen a major spike in requests for services. We have people who can no longer afford insulin or asthma medication," McAlester remarked. "These medications are very expensive."

The organization typically holds four fundraisers throughout the year, but had to cancel all of them in 2020.

Hope Within is planning a Valentine's Day fundraiser, she noted, with more information coming soon on the organization's Facebook page. "We'll ask people to donate to us, and in return, we'll send a personalized card out on their behalf," McAlester explained.

Along with financial constraints, the organization lost a lot of volunteer office staff and a few doctors, many of whom are elderly and were worried about the risk of continuing to volunteer during a pandemic.

Despite these challenges, McAlester remains hopeful that Hope Within will continue to thrive.

"We are a Christian ministry, and our faith is strong," she stated. "We rely on our faith, and we have found that God has been faithful. Even though this past year has been hard, we have surpassed whatever goals we have set."