The Story of NxNE Clinic and its Founders
Our Founders
Dr. Jill Ginsberg (pictured on the right in photo) is the Founding Medical Director of North by Northeast Community Health Center. She and Pastor Mary Overstreet met in November 2005 and opened the clinic doors in August of 2006. She has been active in the pursuit of social justice for many years, including working with the Portland Jobs with Justice Workers’ Rights Board and serving on the Board of Directors and as Social Action chair of Congregation Beth Israel in Portland. From 2001-2007 she served on the Commission of Social Action of Reform Judaism, which helps set public policy for the Reform movement’s 900 congregations. Dr. Ginsberg’s experience in helping start a free medical clinic for Spanish-speaking residents of Forks, WA, and her commitment to community engagement were invaluable in her work with North by Northeast Community Health Center. Her educational background includes undergraduate studies at Barnard College, medical training at the University of California San Francisco and a Masters in Public Health from the University of California Berkeley. Dr. Ginsberg has lived in Northeast Portland with her family since 1994. She was a family physician with Northwest Permanente from 1994-2012. Dr. Ginsberg served on the Health Share of Oregon Board of Directors as the Primary Care Physician Representative from 2012-2018.
Pastor Mary Overstreet Smith (1937-2016), known to millions as “Pastor Mary,” was the founding mother of North by Northeast Community Health Center. She was uninhibited in the midst of challenges and founded, among other things, the Powerhouse Church of God in Christ and Harvest Time Ministry TV Cable services. In addition to aiding Hurricane Katrina victims in 2005, Pastor Mary has aided those in her own community by founding and operating a food bank, a homeless and emergency shelter and drives to distribute warm clothes and blankets to the homeless. She ministered in jails and prisons and actively participated in the Northeast Gang Intervention Program as well as mentored youth and provided college scholarships to those seeking further education. Pastor Mary held degrees in social work, administration of justice and correction, and an honorary Doctor of Divinity. She was licensed as a foster parent and practical nurse. Her awards reflect her many years of deep service to her community and are too numerous to mention.
Our Story
Pastor Mary Overstreet Smith didn’t wait for the Red Cross or FEMA to tell her how to help the hurricane survivors in Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana after the storms of August, 2005. She listened to the voice within that told her that people couldn’t wait for help that was too long in coming. She decided to send a van for those willing to make a fresh start in Portland, Oregon, and eventually relocated, clothed, fed and housed forty families. When some of the survivors needed medical care and medications, Pastor Mary discovered that the only free clinic in her neighborhood had been closed for some time and that no local clinic offered evening hours. As she talked with her neighbors and church members, she found that many long-time community residents had no health coverage, even those who worked full time. Many simply went without the care or medications they knew they needed or visited the local emergency room as a last resort.
Hearing about the way Pastor Mary took action to help those affected by the hurricanes inspired Dr. Jill Ginsberg, a family physician, to offer her assistance. She gathered donations from her neighbors and brought them to the Powerhouse Temple Church on N. Williams Avenue, where Pastor Mary had arranged to meet her. Little did Dr. Ginsberg know that her life was about to change forever. When Pastor Mary asked for her help in starting a free medical clinic in a small office building she owned up the street from the church, Dr. Jill could not think of a reason to say no.
That meeting was the beginning of the North by Northeast Community Health Center, and of a partnership based in faith, friendship, and a passion for community service.
Through their willingness to work together, a shared vision began to take shape. The vision included free health care for low-income adults in a neighborhood clinic that provided care for chronic illnesses. Evening hours would allow working people the chance to obtain care without missing work.
Pastor Mary likes to say the meeting of these two was predestined. Dr. Jill quotes the Jewish teaching that says, ”Although you do not have to finish the task, neither are you free to desist from it.” As these two women of faith took the lead, many friends, colleagues and community members stepped up to help. Less than a year later, on August 17th 2006, the North by Northeast Community Health Center welcomed its first patient.