Our communities are fortunate to have a community health center like the Cassopolis Family Clinic Network operating in southwest Michigan.

The non-profit organization has been providing affordable healthcare to citizens in Berrien and Cass counties for more than 50 years.

More importantly, it caters to a portion of the population that often does not receive adequate healthcare due to socioeconomic factors.

As a community health center, Cass Family Clinic’s focus is on providing quality healthcare to everyone, regardless of whether or not they have insurance. It also is one of the few medical practices in the area that will accept Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Just this week, the Cass Family Clinic announced that it is expanding its reach by opening a dental office in the City of Niles.

According to an assessment by the clinic, there are more than 4,000 people in the Niles area who have difficultly affording dentistry work or finding a dentist to serve them because they are either uninsured or on Medicaid.

The new office, which will have as many as 12 dental laboratories, will allow these people to get the type of dental work most of us take for granted.

If that isn’t enough to put a smile on your face, the clinic also announced this week that it plans to build a new medical office in the City of Niles similar to the beautiful facility that went up in Cassopolis nearly two years ago.

These new developments are in response to a growing need for the type of services the Cass Family Clinic Network provides.

Last year, through its network of services, the clinic served nearly 11,000 patients and received more than 43,000 visits. Those numbers are up 20 percent and 28 percent, respectively, from the year prior.

Clinic leaders believe that those numbers will continue to grow at the same rate again this year.

It is good to see the clinic has a plan to meet this growing need.

Opinions expressed are those of the editorial board consisting of Publisher Michael Caldwell and editors Ambrosia Neldon, Craig Haupert, Ted Yoakum and Scott Novak.