STERLING – After 15 years of providing free health care for the poor, a faith-based clinic has run its course and is closing its doors Nov. 1.

Director Connie Cato, a physician assistant, and her late husband, Harrel, and Dr. Hasmukh Shah and his wife, Jyotsna, opened Agape Care Team Health Services in 1997 in the basement of the Rock River Christian Center in Rock Falls.

From 2001 to 2006, it was operating out of the Whiteside County Health Department. It’s now at 16 E. Miller Road in Sterling. Most of the staff are volunteers.