When your mission is to bless others with caring and compassion, sooner or later the blessings start to come back to you.

That’s certainly the case with Heartland Medical Clinic, 1 Riverfront Plaza, which will celebrate a very merry Christmas this year.

The day before Thanksgiving, the full-service, family-practice medical clinic, which provides free or discounted treatment to those who do not have health insurance, received an unexpected gift in the mail: a $50,000 check.

The unrestricted grant from a private family foundation based in the Kansas City area was to support the clinic’s efforts serving the community.

“My initial reaction was I was extremely thankful, and it just reminded me of how God knows all of our needs and provides for them when we ask,” said the Rev. Paul Gray, president of the clinic’s board.

The gift couldn’t have come at a better time.

In order to make ends meet, several of the clinic’s key, paid staff members had foregone their salaries for a couple of months, and it didn’t look as though they would be paid for a couple more.

The unexpected grant allowed the clinic — a cooperative ministry of six Lawrence churches — to restore their salaries.

Also, the clinic’s $15,000 payment for its annual malpractice insurance is due at the first of the year. Thanks to the grant, that’s all been paid.

Heartland Medical Clinic workers, from left, Nina Cobb, Dr. Gill Stephens, Mark Mitchell and Pat Mayo talk about the group's recent holiday party. The group recently received a 0,000 grant from a private family foundation in Kansas City. The clinic offers discounted and free medical care for those who qualify.

Gray, who is also senior pastor of Heartland Community Church, 619 Vt., marveled at the fortunate turn of events.

“That’s one of those things where we were just trusting God to provide that money (for insurance) because without it we couldn’t see patients, and we didn’t have it,” he said.

The grant from the family foundation, which has requested anonymity, came about by pure coincidence.

A group of staff from Heartland Medical Clinic attended a banquet in early November at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center Hotel in Kansas City, Mo., hosted by the Olathe-based Servant Christian Community Foundation.

At the event, charitable grants to various organizations were announced, and the Lawrence group was hoping Heartland Clinic would receive a $5,000 grant.

That didn’t happen. But after the banquet, members of the group happened to meet a woman who was honored at the event. Her family has a private foundation.

The subject of the clinic and its work in Lawrence came up, and the women wanted to learn more.

“This is somebody who is very philanthropic, very charitable, an astute person who has done a lot of giving in her past and knows how to evaluate opportunities,” said Mark Mitchell, the clinic’s chief development officer and chief financial officer.

“I could tell right away that she was interested, so I just kept chatting away with her.”

Mitchell had no idea just how interested the woman really was in the clinic.

She contacted Bill High, president of Servant Christian Community Foundation, which helps people do their charitable giving by setting up foundations for individuals, families, companies, churches and ministries.

“This private foundation called us and asked us what do we know about the Heartland Medical Clinic. Because we had done some work with Heartland, we basically said this was an organization that we know to be solid — run by good, solid folks and certainly worthy of a grant,” High said.

Impressed by care

The person who first made contact with the philanthropic woman at the banquet is Mitchell, who, fittingly, is one of the clinic’s success stories.

The Rev. Paul Gray; his son Jay Gray, a clinic volunteer; and Mark Mitchell talk about the clinic's recent grant of 0,000. Mitchell is the clinic's chief development officer and chief financial officer.

He came to the clinic in August as a patient seeking a physical exam. Mitchell, who does not have health insurance, has myositis, a rare, degenerative muscular disease.

He is a self-employed, financial services consultant, working from his home on a freelance basis. He is trained as a professional fund-raiser.

Mitchell was referred to Heartland Medical Clinic at a time when his business was just getting off the ground. He was living off his savings and disability payments from Social Security.

“Heartland was a real life saver, in terms of their willingness to see me knowing I would have trouble paying. And they were the ones who gave me all of these ideas about how to deal with the myositis with a wholeness-wellness regimen,” Mitchell said.

He was so impressed with the clinic and its mission that he quickly became a volunteer, offering help with financial issues.

Mitchell, 52, earned a bachelor’s in business administration and accounting in 1974 from Kansas University. He earned a master’s in business administration in 1993 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Because of Mitchell’s training and experience as a professional fund-raiser, the clinic’s board recently asked him to become its chief development officer and chief financial officer.

He began working 20 hours per week at the clinic on Dec. 13. He receives a small consulting fee each month.

“Heartland treated me with an unbelievable amount of compassion, caring and consideration, well beyond anything I have ever experienced at any medical clinic in my life,” Mitchell said.

“I view this as a long-term relationship. I want to be a part of it well into the foreseeable future.”