Health & Wellness

Crescent Community Health Center Announces Advocacy Awardees

Crescent Community Health Center Advocacy Awards are given annually to individuals who are dedicated community stakeholders, board members, patients or others who have impacted the work of Crescent and enabled their progress toward fulfilling their vision, quality care for all, resulting in a healthy community. This year’s awardees include Mary Rose Corrigan; Catherine Dunn, BVM; Art Roche; and Nancy Van Milligen.

In 2006, Nancy Van Milligen and the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque launched a bold new idea called Envision 2010. With 2,300 ideas submitted they narrowed it down to ten with a number one: the need for a community health center. It was Nancy’s skill of rallying the community, the city, and supporters to make the first of the ten projects a success with the opening of Crescent.

Nancy reached out and built a board of directors to include Catherine Dunn, BVM, the first board chair who used her influence at the state and national level to incorporate Tri-State Community Health Center, later renamed Crescent Community Health Center. Along with Nancy and Catherine, the team was rounded out with Mary Rose Corrigan, who with her experience in public health, built the operations of Crescent. Mary Rose Corrigan served for more than 10 years as the president of the board of the directors. Under her leadership Crescent grew to serving over 8,000 patients in 2019.

Since 2006, they have never stopped leading, supporting and promoting the exponential growth of Crescent.

Art Roche spent his career in healthcare as the community ministry officer at Mercy Medical Center. It was through a needs assessment in 2015 that identified the Marshallese Community as an underserved population in need of healthcare, specifically to address diabetes. In looking for a partner, Crescent was a perfect choice and he established the Dubuque Pacific Islander Health Project addressing this heartbreaking story and the barriers many faced in getting quality affordable care. Art has served as chair of the Dubuque Pacific Islander Health Project Advisory Group and continues to reach out for support, telling their story and removing barriers so they can live healthy productive lives.


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