To the editor:

What an amazing community in which we live!

While 12,000 Douglas County residents are without health insurance, it felt like nearly the same number of individuals stepped up to support the Lawrence Half-Marathon and 5K on April 15 that benefited the Health Care Access Clinic.

It has been no easy task providing medical care to those without coverage for the past 19 years (also very much a community effort of volunteer medical professionals and entities) especially after being faced with a 20 percent loss to our revenue from the state last summer.

But the chain of events, which were covered very well by our local media, brought light to the needs of the clinic. This in turn led Steve and Marcia Riley to our doors, with the blessings of Raintree Montessori School, offering the race as help to our mission and bottom line.

Thank you to the hundreds of volunteers, the city of Lawrence, Lawrence Police Department, Lawrence-Douglas County Fire and Medical, Haskell Indian Nations University, Kansas University, TherapyWorks and all of our sponsors for making the race a success.

This has given the clinic new hope for being able to not only maintain services, but provide health care to even more uninsured individuals in the future.

Nikki King, executive director,

Health Care Access Clinic, Lawrence