Sawtooth Mountain Clinic

About and Mission:

Sawtooth Mountain Clinic (SMC) is a Federally Qualified Community Health Center in Grand Marais, MN. Founded in 1979, SMC has served the health care needs of Cook County, MN and the Grand Portage Reservation for over 40 years.

We maintain that quality healthcare, regardless of financial ability to pay, is a right, not a privilege. Our mission is to provide access to high-quality, patient-centered primary and preventative healthcare for all persons throughout SMC’s service area of Cook County, Minnesota and the Anishinaabe Nation of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, on whose ancestral tribal lands we stand.

We are able to meet our community’s varied needs through community and public health services as well. From childbirth education to city planning, a healthy community is the motive for everything we do.

Sawtooth Mountain Clinic, Inc. (SMC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

The Giving Tree:

On the rural and remote north shore of Lake Superior we face unique challenges when it comes to healthcare. We are the only primary care facility serving the needs of Cook County, MN and the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa - an area that covers 3,400 square miles.  We are committed to fulfilling our mission of providing high-quality healthcare to all residents and visitors of this area, regardless of ability to pay.  At Sawtooth Mountain Clinic, we believe that every single person deserves excellent healthcare and our dedicated team works hard each day to ensure that our community can access the care they need.

One of the most significant tools we have to remove financial barriers and enable access to care is our Giving Tree program. For years, Sawtooth Mountain Clinic’s Giving Tree has been funded by generous donors who, like us, believe everyone should have access to high-quality care. Giving Tree dollars are converted into essential items like fuel cards, grocery vouchers, and medical lodging vouchers. These items enable patients to attend essential medical appointments, keep food on the table in the face of a health crisis, and travel the long distances required to access vital specialist services. In a community where it may be a 250+ mile round trip to the nearest cardiologist or surgery center, a lack of affordable transportation ceases to be a financial issue and quickly becomes a critical healthcare issue. For some families, access to affordable transportation can quite literally be matter of life and death.  

As prices of goods continue to rise we have increased the dollar amount of fuel cards and grocery vouchers. Your generous gift is especially important this year in mitigating the effect of inflation on Cook County families.