In the 1990s, Frank Lamson, a newly minted registered pediatric nurse, was working at an urban school clinic in Massachusetts when he had an idea: if similar school-based clinics could be established in rural areas, countless families would benefit.
He shared his idea with his friend, pediatrician Becky Foulk, who already had a private practice in South Royalton. The two hit it off, and together with local school nurses and other partners, they founded Vermont’s first school-based clinic, HealthHUB, in 1995.
With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and state human services agencies, HealthHUB, in partnership with the South Royalton Health Center, provides students and families with on-campus medical services, mental health counseling, and, since 2009, mobile dental services.
Initially, services were limited to a few small towns, but now extend to more than a dozen communities in the White River Valley, from Brookfield to Stockbridge.
Of all the services, dental care is the most popular. Last school year alone, approximately 400 patients received dental treatment.
The iconic silver-gray mobile clinic, with a large smiling tooth emblazoned on its side, shuttles between schools and health centers, becoming a familiar “mobile dentist” to the local community.
The first mobile clinic, purchased at a cost of $95,000, funded by Senator Bernie Sanders, has been retired and is now parked in the Royalton Town Hall parking lot for storage.
Its successors continue to serve, and the latest addition—a 42-foot-long RV named “Rosie”—marks a milestone in HealthHUB’s expansion of dental services.
Named after “Rosie the Riveter,” the RV is equipped with two dental chairs, a panoramic X-ray system, and a full complement of dental equipment, representing a total investment of $125,000.
Ramson personally traveled to West Virginia to pick up the RV and brought it back to Vermont last fall. Today, it has become a core facility for regional dental care.
HealthHUB currently employs a full-time dentist, a dental hygienist, and a dental assistant, with plans to hire more.
Dr. Falk stated that hiring full-time dentist Colleen Anderson was a key step in the organization’s development, enabling the clinic to expand from limited services during holidays to a comprehensive dental program for both adults and children.
For thirty years, Lamson and Falk’s vision has remained consistent: to ensure that students don’t miss school, parents can work, and healthcare is truly accessible to rural communities.
As Lamson explained, “Our goal with this program was to ensure that children could access healthcare while they were in school and parents could work.”