Northeast Washington County Community Health, Inc., better known as The Health Center, was incorporated in 1974 as a non-profit corporation governed by a community board. Our first office opened in 1973 in a house located at Goddard College before moving to our current location. We became a Rural Health Clinic soon after the passage of the Rural Health Clinic Services Act in 1977.

In 2002, our Board of Directors made the decision to expand our facility. We had outgrown our space. A building originally constructed to house a staff of 11 and to accommodate about 1200 patients simply wasn’t large enough to house over 8500 patients and more than 75 employees. We embarked upon a major capital campaign and completed in 2008 a $4.1 million expansion and renovations, more than doubling the size of our building, including a new dental suite, double the number of exam rooms, the pharmacy, two new clinical control areas, expanded physical therapy space, and social worker offices.

While our construction was underway, we became a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) on July 1, 2007.

In 2009 we received an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Capital Improvement grant. With those funds we further expanded our dental operations to help meet the increasing oral health needs of low income Vermonters.  The Health Center, in collaboration with Ronald McDonald Charities of Burlington and Ronald McDonald Global Charities, began the operation of the mobile dental van, serving children and adolescents, in rural areas of Vermont with limited dental access.

On September 17, 2012, we dedicated our Annex, the culmination of the expansion project begun ten years before, in 2002. This annex houses our counseling services and our mobile dentistry program. The building also provides space to host exercise and wellness activities. A substantial portion of the annex was funded through a Construction Development Grant under the Affordable Care Act.

The Health Center currently serves in excess of 9,500 patients with a staff of over 80 employees. The support of our community, our friends and neighbors, and our dedicated staff, has been critical in helping us to strengthen our capacity to provide quality, affordable health care for the communities we serve, now and into the future.