(Photo by Shelley Hanson) Kathie Brown, executive director of Wheeling Health Right, and Dr. James Comerci, at right, lead a mortgage burning ceremony outside the clinic on Wednesday. An anonymous donor paid off the clinic’s remaining mortgage.

WHEELING – Wheeling Health Right officials held a mortgage burning ceremony on Wednesday, an event made possible by an anonymous donation from a private foundation.

Kathie Brown, executive director of Wheeling Health Right, lit the papers with help from Dr. James Comerci, volunteer medical director for Wheeling Health Right, during the ceremony held outside the building in Center Wheeling.

“Jim and I have been dreaming about this for 32 years,” Brown said. “It’s a pretty exciting day. I used to say when I hit the lottery I’m going to pay off our mortgage. But I don’t play the lottery, so I didn’t hit the lottery. But this really did it.”

Brown said the donation to pay off the mortgage and the purchase of a new mobile health care unit were both made possible by the anonymous donor. Both were made in memory of the late Dr. Donald Hofreuter, who helped found and lead the clinic.

“It’s really the community that has made this happen,” Comerci said of the clinic.

He said in the early years the clinic operated out of small rooms in a church and in some cases closet spaces.

“It certainly is a fantastic day and is evidence of what the community can do to help us do what we do,” he said. “It’s really the community that this is for. We’re so grateful for all the people who have supported Health Right’s mission over the years. We hope to be here for many years to come.”

Following the ceremony, Brown said the new mobile primary care clinic will begin making its weekly rounds in Brooke, Ohio, Marshall and Wetzel counties starting in April.

“From there we will grow as needed,” she said. “The idea is to take us to people in the community rather than the community having to come here.”