DANVILLE – Work will begin within the week to double the size of the Aunt Martha's Vermilion Area Community Health Center at 614 N. Gilbert St., Danville.

More than 6,035 square feet of unoccupied space adjacent to the current center in the former Black's Hardware building will be renovated to add a dental clinic, including nine dental exam rooms, a dental lab and a waiting area; a reception area; a medical records room; a break room; five new behavioral-health offices; and a conference room.

"We are very excited," said Pam Taylor, a driving force behind the creation and expansion of the clinic, which serves primarily uninsured and underinsured clients. "There are tremendous mental health problems, especially among our young people, and the need for dental care speaks for itself. We need to do a lot of educating. There are a lot of side effects from poor dental care. This expansion will allow us to help more people."

The center offers primary, dental and behavioral-health services. The added space for dental and behavioral health services will create 10 new jobs – eight in the dental clinic, and two in the behavioral health departments – and allow more people to be served.

Seventy-five percent of the center's patients are uninsured or underinsured, said Raul Garza, Aunt Martha's CEO. In the past three years, the center has served 12,000 individual patients for 60,000 patient visits at the Gilbert Street site.

What began as an all-volunteer clinic with primary, oral, behavioral-health services and a prescription assistance program in the basement of the First Presbyterian Church became one of the 18 Aunt Martha's health centers in Illinois in 2005 and moved to the Gilbert Street building. It is the organization's second expansion at this site.

"The Vermilion Area Community Health Center had a prescription assistance program that was such a success, we took it to all our other centers," Garza said. "It also had Pam Taylor, who asked Aunt Martha's to take on the clinic, and she has advocated for it from the beginning."

The expansion is made possible through more than $136,000 from the Illinois Children's Healthcare Foundation and $500,000 from the $2.45 million Aunt Martha's received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Aunt Martha's will add another $280,000 in new furniture and equipment, and the Illinois Children's Healthcare Foundation will provide $70,000 for mental health services in the new offices.

State Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville, commended the center on the "phenomenal need you are meeting. You never get the recognition you deserve. I hate to think where my hometown would be in this economy without you."

The use of the space comes as concerns grow in the community about health care services.

"The need for dental care comes up in so many meetings I attend concerning our community," Danville Mayor Scott Eisenhauer said. "Looking at the plan for the renovation, we'll be in much better shape now."

The renovation work is being done by Offutt Development of Danville. Paul Offutt said he expects the project to be completed by the end of January.

The center hours are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, 8 a.m. to 7:45 p.m. Wednesday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday. Appointments for services are preferred, but walk-ins are welcome. To schedule an appointment or request additional information about the health center, call 442-8790.