Crews work together to paint the Woodland Urgent Care building near Steck Medical Group Wednesday afternoon in Chehalis.
Carrie Bixel organizes painters Wednesday afternoon in Chehalis.
Carrie Bixel poses for a photo with Doctor Harley Miller after a day of painting Wednesday afternoon in Chehalis.
Plastic covers windows as crews paint the outside of the Woodland Urgent Care Center in Chehalis.
A woman paints on the exterior of the Woodland Urgent Care Center on Wednesday in Chehalis.
Doug Bixel uses an airbrush to paint the exterior of the Woodland Urgent Care Center on Wednesday in Chehalis.
Dozens of volunteers and three generations of the Miller family — from co-owner Dr. Harley Miller down to his 8-year-old twin grandsons — joined forces to give Steck Medical Group a much-needed facelift this week.
The center, which has been providing medical care in Lewis County since 1927, had fallen into disrepair over the years, and the locally-owned company didn’t have the money or resources to pay professionals to fix it, especially during the pandemic.
The center has been at its current building on Bishop Road since the mid-70s, and desperately needed a new roof and a complete paint job. So an effort was spearheaded by new chief operating officer Joe Mount, who grew up in Chehalis and graduated from W.F. West High School, to find volunteers to help fix the place up.
Work started on Sunday with fixes to the entryway as volunteers poured in from all over the area. A group of employees, a few patients, families and members from both The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Chehalis and the Chehalis Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) Church have all been out to help this week, including other groups. One man, visiting Monday to pick up a prescription, noticed a group of people scraping paint on the side of the building. So he stopped and helped.
“It’s been a real good group of people and a big mix from the community,” said board member Carrie Bixel, who is one of three of Dr. Miller’s children who are board members. “Everyone’s come together so nicely. It’s been pretty great.”
It’s rare to have private medical centers around that survive, Bixel said, and Steck hasn’t been doing very well in recent years. But lately, the center has taken off again as six of Dr. Miller’s children who grew up in the community have since moved back and are helping to save it.
“Some of us have come back and are on the board and advising to help turn it around and keep these small providers open who still see Medicare patients, because a lot of people don’t anymore,” Bixel said.
Dr. Miller, who is 84 years old, jokes that he can’t retire yet because most of his patients are still older than him. Miller, who grew up in South Dakota and moved to Lewis County nearly 60 years ago, has been a medical doctor since 1962. He attended the Loma Linda University School of Medicine in Loma Linda, California.
He joined Steck Medical Group in 1967 and has been treating patients around the county ever since. Miller said it was encouraging to see the outpouring of help this week.
“I’m very grateful for that,” Miller said. “Happy for the community and family support.”
Miller is mostly seeing telemedicine patients through video calls to stay safe against COVID-19 due to his age. The center has four new providers, two male and two female, that the company is excited to work with, including one who grew up in the area.
The office has been open through all the repairs, including the urgent care center. Bixel said they expect to be finished painting by this weekend. Then they’ll turn their attention to bathroom renovations and landscaping outside. They’ve already done some major pruning of overgrown bushes, and found that some walling needs replacing that was discovered while painting.
For now, she’s just happy to see the community come together and help a local business in a time of need.
“Well it’s really touching and it tears me up when I think about it,” Bixel said. “It’s really been great to see all the support of the community and know they care about this place so much.”
