For thirty years, the Women’s Needs Center (WNC) provided free health care to uninsured and underinsured women in San Francisco. In February of 1999, the Women’s Needs Center was forced to shut its doors because of financial cutbacks at the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics, Inc. At the time that it closed, the WNC was providing services to over 4,000 women annually. A group of WNC volunteers and clinicians understood the dramatic impact that the WNC’s closing would have on the local landscape. With the support of community member, colleagues, family and friends, they decided to re-open the clinic as an independent entity.