The Marion Women’s Club has a “heart” for the community, evident through its recent selection of Grace Clinic-Marion to receive the Club’s 4th annual Ida Barlow Brilliance Award.
The local clinic, which provides free medical care for uninsured and underinsured residents, will use the $1,000 award for its local Rapid EKG Screening Initiative.
“This past year, hundreds of Marion-area patients received essential primary care, as well as chronic disease management, and prescription assistance – care they might otherwise go without,” explains Angela Johnson, executive director-Grace Clinics of Ohio. “This initiative will allow us to go one step further by providing immediate, in-house EKG testing, a critical component of overall health care.”
Johnson said the new EKG machine will not only replace an outdated, cumbersome unit, but will help to identify potential heart-health issues for immediate evaluation, while providing timely, reliable results.
As an example, Johnson said her team completed 110 youth sports physicals in Marion last summer. “We identified three cardiac abnormalities and provided referrals to families to Nationwide Children’s Hospital for full echocardiograms and follow-up evaluations,” she explained. “This bridges a critical gap in pediatric cardiac care for families with limited access to healthcare.”
Located in the former Marion Star building at 140 Court Street, Grace Clinic-Marion partners with Leapin’ Ministries and other nonprofits to provide basic necessities to families in need.
“Together, we extend care beyond medical services to support the whole person and strengthen the health of the Marion community,” Johnson pointed out.
Strengthening the community is at the heart of the Women’s Club mission, explains Valerie Wigton, president. “One of the qualifications in the application is providing the connection between the proposed project and our Club mission,” Wigton pointed out. “This heart-healthy initiative directly aligns with our mission statement.”
This year the award has even greater significance, Wigton pointed out, due to the fact that Shauck Barlow, the spouse of Ida Barlow (for whom the award is named and who donated the historic home to the Club), died of a heart attack in 1945 while tending to his rose garden, according to his Marion Star obituary.
Grace Clinic-Marion was selected among a field of nine strong applications.
First awarded in 2022 by the Marion Women’s Club, previous Ida Barlow Brilliance Award winners are: Barb Pine, JerZee Drive, 2022, for her “Story Time Reading Program;” Jenni Hypes, Aspire Ministries, 2023, for “Strong Women Enrichment Day;” and the Peace & Freedom Committee’s Tara Dyer in 2024 for the Paul Robeson Speech Academy.
The award was named for Ida Harsh Barlow, who with her husband, Shauck, bequeathed their home at 1126 E. Center Street to the Marion Women’s Club in 1945. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
“Ida was an early Clubwoman who, in the late 1890s, helped move a group of women from an informal book club to a club of action, eventually forming the Marion Women’s Club,” Wigton pointed out. “Today we honor her work as we continue to improve our community and our citizenry.”
Recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, the Marion Women’s Club is likely the oldest continuously functioning women’s nonprofit organization in Marion tracing its roots to 1895. For more, visit MarionWomensClub.org
