Photo by Jeff Thompson.
Edwina Taylor Cahaba Valley Health Care
Cahaba Valley Health Care Executive Director Edwina Taylor demonstrates proper brushing techniques at the organization’s office off Valleydale Road.
Cahaba Valley Health Care is holding an Open House on Saturday, Jan. 11, at 11 a.m. in its offices off Valleydale Road.
Edwina Taylor
Founder, Executive Director, Cahaba Valley Health Care
991-8771 • 4515 Southlake Parkway, Suite 150
For the uninsured in America, getting medical care can prove to be a significant hurdle. Through her years in the medical profession, Edwina Taylor said she saw it firsthand.
Since her career as a nurse and nurse practitioner ended, Taylor has gone out of her way to get even closer.
Taylor founded Cahaba Valley Health Care (CVHC), a service organization that assists Shelby and Jefferson County residents with medical needs. The nonprofit provides basic vision, dental and nutrition care to underserved populations, simply because Taylor — and the many volunteers who have adopted the cause — want to care for those who can’t find help anywhere else.
“I come from a family that always helped people,” said Taylor, CVHC executive director. “We had people between jobs living with us when I was growing up. That’s just how I was raised. So I’ve always had a heart for helping people any way I could.”
Taylor, 65, is bright and enthusiastic when talking about her work and shows constant compassion for the people she serves. She founded the organization in 2000, but the story behind CVHC goes back to the 1970s.
After earning her nursing degree, Taylor worked at UAB Medical Center and later Cooper Green Mercy Hospital. At both these facilities, she said seeing the need for more access to medical care was unavoidable.
Around the same time, she and her husband helped found Cahaba Valley Church on Caldwell Mill. Taylor said the church was built on a mission of helping others, and it attracted many professionals from service fields including social work and health care.
That was more than two decades before she founded CVHC, but it was an important step in the process. Though the church no longer exists, some of its members served on CVHC’s founding Board of Directors.
Later that decade, something else changed in Taylor’s life that would steer her toward the creation of Cahaba Valley Health Care — a daughter.
Taylor adopted her first child, Chris, from Children’s Aid in Birmingham. But when she wanted to adopt a second child from the organization, she was turned away.
In 1979, Taylor adopted her daughter, Emilie, from an agency in Guatemala. After Emilie came home to Birmingham, Taylor found herself looking more closely at the area’s Hispanic population. She did so for years, until population increases pushed her to action in 1999.
“I started asking around where people were getting their care, and I found out they were getting it from the Jefferson County Health Department and the emergency room,” Taylor said.
Taylor began building a network to reach out to the Hispanic community, starting with Catholic churches in the area. In 2000, she launched CVHC and the organization held its first vision screenings. As word of her efforts spread, numbers increased at the screenings. Thankfully, so did those willing to help, enough that the organization was able to expand its services.
“People are desperate for dental care,” Taylor said. “Most people don’t have dental insurance, and so many people have lost their jobs.”
CVHC now operates a clinic every Sunday that doesn’t fall on a holiday weekend. These include 18 vision clinics and 34 dental clinics. Churches that open their doors to the organization include Le Iglesias en Brook Hills in Chelsea and Briarwood Hispanic Church on Alabama 119. More than 40 volunteers assist at each clinic, including local dentists, optometrists and ophthalmologists.
“We want people involved who want to be involved,” Taylor said. “I tell my students, ‘You’re never going to work with a grumpy person because no one’s getting paid to be here. They’re here because they want to be.’”
CVHC also provides pediatric dental services at its office off Valleydale Road. Taylor said while Jefferson County children have the Health Department to turn to, Shelby County residents have no one. CVHC’s pediatric clinic gives free care on the first visit to all children, with or without insurance.
The organization is also holding an open house this month to invite those interested to see the operation and discuss the coming year.
