On a recent weekday afternoon, Larry Wolk began his rounds at a youth clinic in Denver by visiting with Silvia Ransom and her three children.
“So who wants to go first?” Wolk asked.
“You want to go first, get it out of the way?” Ransom said to her 3-year-old daughter, Harmanie.
“You win, since you have the pretty hair today,” Wolk told Harmanie, who was wearing brightly colored hair ties.
And with that, another doctor’s checkup got underway, one of 60,000 such visits handled each year by Rocky Mountain Youth Clinics. The organization’s 50 clinics across the state treat every youth who comes their way, regardless of a family’s ability to pay.
“We never say no,” Wolk said.
He founded the operation in 1992 and incorporated the nonprofit as Rocky Mountain Youth Clinics in 1996.
“I did my pediatrics training here at . . . Children’s Hospital and at Denver Health, and I felt like there was an additional need for someone to provide care for kids who had trouble accessing the health care system,” Wolk said.
“We needed to go back to almost a house-calls program, not necessarily going to the people’s houses, but going to the places where kids were — high-risk kids, especially, who weren’t getting health care,” he said.
Rocky Mountain started with on-site clinics at homeless shelters, group homes and low-income schools. But it also operates traditional pediatric clinics, including one in Denver.
The organization’s annual budget is $5.2 million, with about 30 percent coming from grants. It is among the many agencies applying for funds from this year’s Season to Share campaign.
Rocky Mountain’s chief operating officer, Carole Saylor, who has been with Wolk since the beginning, said the nonprofit’s growth has “exceeded the dream.”
“I don’t think we ever had a thought of how successful it would become,” she said.
Wolk said success is measured by the growth of the patients.
Ransom has taken her children to Rocky Mountain since her eldest daughter was born eight years ago.
“I love ’em. They’ve helped me a lot,” Ransom said.
Two weeks ago, Wolk spoke with a former patient who is now married and working as a high school physical-education teacher.
“It made me feel really good that he made it. He made it as an adult,” Wolk said. “Our kids have so many odds stacked up against them that I think it’s that much more gratifying for us when those kids make it into adulthood.”
Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com
