Dr. Edward Kelly's mission began with the homeless people who showed up at Mercy Hospital's emergency room needing treatment they couldn't afford. After retiring as an orthopedic surgeon in 2003, he began taking the care to them, searching the streets to provide the medical attention they couldn't or wouldn't seek for themselves.

Now, as the volunteer medical director for relatively new Catholic Charities Free Health Care Center, Downtown, Dr. Kelly said he can see how many local working people -- people with jobs and homes but no health insurance -- and retirees need the routine care that might keep them out of emergency rooms, at their jobs and in their homes.

"What I'm seeing is 100 percent uninsured people, so I know there's a need -- a great need -- and I feel very rewarded to fulfill that need," said Dr. Kelly of Upper St. Clair. "I feel gratified to accept the gratefulness they show that someone is going to take a look at them and care for them."

Dr. Kelly, 66, has won a 2007 Jefferson Award for Public Service for his work that culminated in helping to start and run the clinic. Eight people are being honored for the award that is administered nationally by the America Institute for Public Service and locally, by the Post-Gazette, The Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowments.

At an awards ceremony to be scheduled in late February, Macy's Foundation will provide $1,000 to the clinic on Dr. Kelly's behalf.

Dr. Kelly grew up in Morningside and earned his bachelor's degree from Georgetown University. He continued his education at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, then completed as internship in general surgery at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh.

He had just finished his internship at Mercy when the Navy drafted him in 1968 and sent him to Vietnam. He ended up a battalion surgeon within the Third Marine Division, serving nine months as a field medical officer in a makeshift hospital in Dong Ha, six miles south of the demilitarized zone.

While he operated on hundreds of soldiers wounded in the conflict exploding all around him, Dr. Kelly could also see how even the most basic care eluded many of them.

"They used their toothbrushes to clean their weapons," he said.

After the war, Dr. Kelly completed his orthopedic residency at the University of Pittsburgh, then won a fellowship to the University of Southern California, where he met his wife, Robyn. The couple settled in Pittsburgh, where he entered an orthopedic surgery practice at Mercy Hospital and ultimately became its chief of staff.

The Kellys raised a family during those years, too -- two daughters and a son, with the "good Irish names" of Tierney, Brendan and Bridget.

And as he worked at Mercy, Dr. Kelly provided free care to the homeless people who arrived at the hospital's emergency room with nowhere else to turn.

After he retired, he joined Catholic Charities' Operation Safety Net and began going out in a van with other doctors, nurses and formerly homeless volunteers to search the city's street corners, underpasses and riverbanks for homeless people who need medical help.

Dr. Kelly continued that work even as he began spending many hours building support for Catholic Charities' free clinic, which opened in March to provide medical care to uninsured workers and retirees. Dr. Kelly did much of the "legwork and grunt work to recruit community support among the city's medical professionals," according to clinic administrator Diane Redington, who nominated him for the Jefferson Award.

Dr. Kelly, she said, visited other free clinics around the state and in other parts of the country to see how they provided care. This prompted him to insist that Pittsburgh's free clinic offer dental as well as medical care. He oversaw construction of the clinic. He recruited medical professionals, including dentist Dr. William Manteris of Franklin Park, to staff it. And he sat through innumerable meetings with donors and board members to guide the process of getting the clinic up and running, ultimately spending about 100 hours a month on the project.

The operating budget for the first year is $1 million, which included start-up costs. In subsequent years the clinic is expected to cost $600,000 a year to operate. It sees about 100 patients a week.

In 2008, Dr. Kelly hopes to offer care five days a week at the clinic and also to provide patients with more comprehensive care to address other counseling or medical services that might be needed.

Many people helped get the health care center started, but the clinic "probably would not be here as it is today without Dr. Kelly," Ms. Redington said.

"He was tireless, and he had a vision and he was able to excite the right people to do it," she said.

Coming Monday: Award winner Robert Pitts