From PA Dutch Dinning Destination to Integrative Health Center: The Plain Community Get a Hospital of their Own
The Good N Plenty restaurant in Smoketown, Lancaster County, was opened in 1969 and soon grew into a very large venue for Pennsylvania Dutch dining. It offered a complex of attractions. Good ‘N Plenty could accommodate, astoundingly, over 500 dinners and also had a bake shop, gift shop, small playground, and barnyard petting zoo.
Family-style dining was what the restaurant was famous for, grouping 12-seat tables where all shared the plates of potatoes, vegetables, and meats served in dishes that would keep refilling and be passed around. People were seated next to strangers until the tables were filled, and all were encouraged to share conversation.
The COVID Crisis came at a time when the Good N Plenty was already struggling with food costs, and the restaurant was forced to close for good just before Christmas, 2021. The same crisis that destroyed a Pennsylvania Dutch mainstay proved to be a call to action for courageous local doctors and nurses who were aghast at the recklessness and non-science-oriented path institutional medicine was forcing on the public.
These medical professionals, who are steeped in the deep-rooted reality that is anchored by the Old Order community of Amish and Mennonites, were nudged into action, imagining and then establishing a first-of-its kind parallel healing system independent of the corporate state. What culminated is Well Spring Community Health Organization, which took 3 years to organize into a nonprofit. It consists of a board of Amish Bishops and medical professionals, and with financial support from the community, it purchased the 8.5-acre Good N Plenty property and began retrofitting it out as a full-service clinic.
The health center will offer the Plain community integrative medicine practices in maternity care, functional medicine for a broad range of illnesses, and an urgent care facility. The project is an example of the Amish Church establishing an organization and assuming liability in order to meet a community need. The Well Spring Clinic will not accept private insurance or public forms such as Medicare or Medicaid, as Amish and Mennonite church members generally don’t participate in such worldly schemes. Church members contribute monthly to a medical fund that can help pay for treatments that might burden members without significant means.
Word of this development was revealed to PA-CHD members who attended HUB meetings in King of Prussia in 2021 and 2022. It was heartening to learn that the schism strengthening with mainstream medicine is finding pioneering solutions and brick-and-mortar foundations. Those of us in the Health Freedom Movement knew the inevitable rise of this parallel system and looked forward to supporting it as it grew. And isn’t it exciting that in post-COVID America and in Lancaster County, a health phoenix is rising from a defunct Amish food attraction?
Wellspring plans to open its doors in October. PA-CHD is looking forward to reporting on its grand opening. We will be highlighting some of the modalities offered in the hope that we can encourage others to expand into more community-oriented self-healing clinics that are run by the community for the community.