SMLC growing in staff, outreach

St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic hints at new headquarters, mobile van in next year

By Dan McWilliams

The St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic has expanded its staff in recent months as it seeks to fulfill its mission of extending the healing ministry of Jesus Christ to rural East Tennessee.

SMLC’s 40-foot mobile medical clinic van provides health care to the medically underserved as it makes stops each month throughout the diocese in Crab Orchard, Crossville, Washburn, Decatur, Rutledge, Athens, Helenwood, Gatlinburg, and Pigeon Forge. The clinic also provides services once a month at its headquarters at Divine Mercy Church in Knoxville.

On the horizon for the clinic are a new 45-foot medical van and a new office building at Divine Mercy.

Executive director Martin Vargas said the clinic staff has added two Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Mich., Sister Marie de Paul Stokes as patient navigator and Sister Maliya Grace Suen as special projects manager, as well as LaShay Connor as an administrative assistant and Jackie Benton as a philanthropy specialist.

“Four new people have joined us in the last six months. Since July, we’ve had two Sisters join us, Sister Marie de Paul and Sister Maliya Grace,” Mr. Vargas said. “It’s amazing how God works in our ministry. In addition to those two Sisters who joined us, He sent us exactly what we needed: a new philanthropy specialist to help us with fundraising, Jackie Benton, and in September He sent us an assistant to help the entire clinic, including myself, as we go forward, LaShay Connor.”

Sr. Maria de Paul

Sister Marie de Paul has been a boon in multiple areas, Mr. Vargas said.

“Again, back to God’s blessing. Sister Marie de Paul is our patient navigator, and she helps fill and make sure none of our patients fall through the gaps in the system and helps people move from our care, if that’s what they need and desire, to graduation from uninsured to insured,” he said.

“She helps them, just like her namesake, St. Vincent de Paul, to navigate the system. So, if you think we have patient assistance programs from the manufacturers, think if you’re needing Ozempic, that’s $1,200 a month. She works with the manufacturers, in this case Novo Nordisk, to help the patient get registered and receive that medicine for free or at a steep discount, but many times it’s free. That’s one example of things that she would do,” he added.

“With the state of Tennessee, she helps people get registered on TennCare if they’re eligible. One of the neatest programs that she helps with, if you think that transportation is one of the key barriers for our patients, she helped solve that to a certain extent. She came up with the idea that some of the partners in the community that provide transportation could pick up our patients, bring them to our appointments, and that the clinic would cover that cost. She worked diligently to make that happen.”

The Tennessee Charitable Care Network has also helped SMLC with transportation.

“Then as God would provide, we found a TCCN partner that gave us a grant to pilot the program, and right now we’re beginning to expand that from the two original test sites in Athens and Decatur, Tenn., to Cumberland County clinics and another clinic she’s looking at adding providers of transportation to, that we would do that for our patients who are most in need,” Mr. Vargas said. “TCCN received a pilot funding from Sostento to help alleviate this top challenge for all charitable clinics in East Tennessee, and we’re one of the pilot partners in that program.”

Sr. Maliya Grace

Sister Maliya Grace is “awesome,” Mr. Vargas said.

“God sends you what you need. St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic is in the process and has been of building an office. It takes a lot of energy to build an office and design it, so God sent us her because she’s a civil engineer, and she’s our special projects manager who helps address that,” he said. “She’s doing a tremendous job leading that effort up, just absolutely amazing.”

Ms. Connor assists both the clinic and Mr. Vargas.

Ms. Conner

“St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic is growing in patient count, and to meet that need and be sure we have enough people to service our patients, we also brought on an assistant for the clinic. LaShay Connor is doing an excellent job, both as the assistant to the clinic and for myself as she is the assistant to the executive director,” Mr. Vargas said. “Just such a godsend. She helps us stay together, stay on time, and make sure the clinical staff have what they need and the volunteers have access to the clinical staff. LaShay’s doing an awesome job for us, and we gratefully appreciate her.”

Ms. Benton is newer to the staff.

“At Christmastime, we were able to onboard and hire a philanthropy specialist,” Mr. Vargas said. “With all this growth and to meet the needs of our patients, it’s very important that we fundraise. When you think about new offices, we got a grant from the St. Mary’s Legacy Foundation, we have a new clinic [van] coming in 2026, hopefully February, maybe sooner. So, you can see the growth and activity reflected here, and we’re bringing in the staff necessary to support that growth, and she can help us build a rich tapestry of support to fund all the things that the clinic does.”

Ms. Benton

The new staffers come from far and wide.

“We have Michiganders, we have Australians,” Mr. Vargas said. “Sister Maliya Grace is from Australia and has lived in a wide variety of places. Sister Marie de Paul is from Utah originally and has been with the Religious Sisters of Mercy for two years now, so she’s in her novitiate year. She’s done some of her early postulant formation, and now she’s in her novitiate. It’s very exciting to have her as she’s embarking at the beginning of her religious life.

“LaShay is from Michigan. Jackie lived in Michigan, too, but she’s been a [Tennessee] resident for 20-plus years.”

Mr. Vargas is glad to have the new folks on staff.

“So happy. Many hands make light work,” he said. “The team, as we call it, includes our volunteers and our staff. In addition to that, we have brought on many new volunteers over the last 12 to 24 months.”

One of those is pediatrician Dr. Lisa Padgett.

“Dr. Padgett has been wanting to volunteer with us as she was moving toward retirement,” Mr. Vargas said. “She retired and came to join us, and again as God always provides for our clinic, she’s a pediatrician. Over the last 12 to 18 months we’ve gone from having few pediatric patients to where 5.47 percent of our patients are now children. She’s awesome. We have a lot of different new volunteers.

“We also have several other new nurse practitioners, doctors, and providers who have come on, so God is so good to the clinic and takes care of its needs as we extend the healing ministry of Jesus Christ to East Tennessee.”

The SMLC now numbers 11 fulltime members, Mr. Vargas said.

“It’s exciting to be fully staffed, and it’s such a privilege to work with such great people,” he said. “We are adding a new community outreach coordinator. You can learn more at SMLCares.com/employment.”

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