Listen to this story:

The quick read: The Summerland Health Care Auxiliary has raised $1 million — mostly through its Thrift Store and years of volunteer hours — to help build a new medical clinic in town through the South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundation. The planned Summerland Health Care Auxiliary Medical Clinic at 13201 Victoria Road North will focus on primary care, physician recruitment and retention, and connecting more residents with ongoing medical care. The gift goes straight to construction and renovations, medical equipment, furnishings, and the other necessities needed to get the clinic open. SOS Medical Foundation CEO Ian Lindsay called it an extraordinary commitment, and Auxiliary president Kathy Hogman credited the volunteers and the Summerland residents who donate and shop at the Thrift Store. The model is Penticton's Colleen Schneider Medical Centre, which has recorded 41,195 appointments and 2,912 increased patient attachments as of June 2026. The clinic still needs community donations to reach the finish line — contributions go through the SOS Medical Foundation.

A thrift store in Summerland just did what the provincial health bureaucracy has failed to do for years.

The Summerland Health Care Auxiliary has raised $1 million to help build a new medical clinic in town, funnelled through the South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundation.

The planned Summerland Health Care Auxiliary Medical Clinic will sit at 13201 Victoria Road North.

Its stated goals are primary care, physician recruitment and retention, and connecting more residents with ongoing medical care.

Thousands of Okanagan residents still cannot find a family doctor, and here a town decided to solve the problem the old-fashioned way: itself.

The money comes from donated items, thrift store purchases, and volunteer hours — not a government program.

"This gift was made possible by our volunteers and by the people of Summerland who donate and shop at our Thrift Store," said Kathy Hogman, president of the Auxiliary.

The gift will go directly to construction and renovations, medical equipment, furnishings, and the other necessities needed to get the clinic up and running.

"This gift reflects the extraordinary commitment Summerland residents have to one another," said Ian Lindsay, CEO of the SOS Medical Foundation, in the foundation's release.

The project takes its inspiration from the Colleen Schneider Medical Centre in Penticton, another primary-care initiative backed by the SOS Medical Foundation.

That clinic's family practice has recorded 41,195 appointments and 2,912 increased patient attachments as of June 23, 2026.

"The Colleen Schneider Medical Centre showed us what community investment in primary care can accomplish," Lindsay said.

Say the quiet part out loud: a volunteer-run thrift store is building clinics while the province's billion-dollar health apparatus can't keep a family doctor in town.

Summerland spent much of this summer under wildfire evacuation orders, and the town's response to that crisis was the same as its response to the doctor shortage — neighbours helping neighbours.

This is also how institutions that last are built: not by announcement, but by years of showing up.

The clinic isn't fully funded yet — the foundation is still accepting community donations to bring the project over the line.

But $1 million raised on thrift-store proceeds is proof of a simple truth: when communities are free to act, they often do the job government only talks about.