Robert Goldsmith,
President and CEO

1173 West Main Street
Abingdon, VA 24210

Phone: (276) 623-9000
Fax: (276) 628-2931
peopleinc@naxs.com www.peopleincorp.org

Incorporated: 1964

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People, Inc. began in 1964 as the Progressive Community Club (PCC) of Hayter's Gap in a rural valley along the northern border of Washington County, Va. Garland Thayer, principal of the local elementary school, and Fount and Thelma Henderson, a store owner and his school teacher wife, started the club to provide education, recreation, and day care for Hayter's Gap residents.

The club soon grew in scope thanks to funding through the new federal Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), created as the primary tool in the War on Poverty. Thayer and Fount Henderson actively pursued the newly available grants, prompting Thayer to later write, "The PCC was probably the first and only [Community Action] Agency to have a country store keeper with a ninth grade education telling educated bureaucrats how they should spend his tax money."

In December of 1964, the Progressive Community Club was chartered as one of the nation's first Community Action Agencies, designed to serve low-income people throughout Washington County and the neighboring city of Bristol. The PCC's early programs included a pre-school program, later to become Head Start, and a home counseling program to link low-income people with available services.

Today known as People, Inc. of Southwest Virginia, the agency is active in Bristol City and the counties of Buchanan, Dickenson, Russell, and Washington. Several programs are available in adjoining counties and cities as well. People, Inc. operates thirty-two programs to help low-income people improve their lives and build self-sufficiency.