Our Story
Cass Community Health Foundation was first established as Research Belton Hospital Foundation in 1984 to help raise funds to support a broad array of essential hospital services. In 2003, HCA Midwest Health, a for-profit company purchased Research Belton Hospital requiring the Foundation to conclude its affiliation with the hospital. While no longer affiliated with the hospital, the Foundation remained committed to the health needs of Cass County and later changed its name to Cass Community Health Foundation.
Cass Community Health Foundation is led by a board of community leaders and staff dedicated to improving health in Cass County and the surrounding communities. We saw a need for, and are still committed to providing, dental care for children and teens in Cass County who previously had no access to Medicaid-accepting providers. In 2009, the foundation formed a community coalition to develop a plan for a full-time safety net dental clinic. With grant funding from the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City (now Health Forward Foundation) and the Reach Healthcare Foundation, we opened Cass County Dental Clinic in Belton, Missouri in 2011. As the first safety net dental clinic in Cass County, Missouri, we quickly became the primary source for Medicaid dental care for underserved children in our area.
With high demand, we expanded our mission, opening a second clinic in Harrisonville, Missouri, in 2015. This clinic increased access to care by 53% for children from the central and southern parts of Cass County, Missouri.
By 2023, we had served more than 4,000 children in a single year—a record for us. The growing demand for our services led to the construction of a new state-of-the-art clinic at 1000 Markey Parkway in Belton, Missouri, completed in 2025. This expansion helps us continue providing access and care to underserved children and their families in our community.
