Like most non-profit agencies Avis Goodwin Community Health Center  (AGCHC) has an amazing history and it all started in response to the problem of women appearing in the emergency room in labor having had no prenatal care.

  So in July of 1969 with one patient in her ninth month of pregnancy, Avis Goodwin the director of social services at Wentworth Douglass Hospital founded the first prenatal clinic in the county. Everything from medication and formula to space and services were donated.  From the twenty-nine patients seen that first year the agency grew to serve ninety-seven patients in just two years. Then in 1971 the agency was incorporated as a non profit prenatal and family planning clinic.

1973 the Rochester site opened in the Sarah Kendall Building at Frisbee Memorial Hospital and it was during  this time that the name was established as “Strafford County Prenatal & Family Planning Program” .

 To offer the Women, Infant and Children (WIC) program in Strafford country the agency began contracting with the NH Division of Public Health Services in 1978 which was a great step to providing WIC services to the community.

 Over the next decade the agency expanded its services to add such programs as Sexually Transmitted Disease Screening and Treatment and AIDS/HIV testing and counseling services with Federal Center of Disease Control (CDC) funds.

                  Avis Goodwin

With patient education being a major focus for the agency it created educational programs such as the Mother’s Friend Program, Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program and the Gift of Reading. The agency also received a three-year Title X special initiative fund for the implementation of a special project to encourage male involvement.

In 1990 the agency added commodity Supplemental Food Program for children and in 1994 expanded this service to include the elderly.

 As the community needs grew so didn’t the agency and to determine the needs for primary care services in Strafford county  the agency received a needs assessment grant from the Division of Public Health Services. The agency began to transition to a community health center and with community support primary care services began in 1994. Using family practice providers this allowed the agency to address the whole patient.

 A few short years later the Breast and Cervical Cancer Program was implemented.

 In 1996 the states community health centers joined together to form Community Health Access Network (CHAN) allowing the health centers to share services.

 The Breast and Cervical Cancer Early prevention program was established in 1997. With the opening of the dental department in 2004 the agency had the opportunity to provide a much needed service to the community. This program continues to grow and now participates in the school-base dental program.

 The agency continues to grow with the opening in 2005 of an OB/GYN practice in Rochester.  With education and prevention still being a major focus the agency continues to educate its patients with its many chronic disease control management and education programs.

 The agency has since been designated a Federally Qualified Health Center and today has three clinical locations and an administration office.

 This agency is proof that with patience, great goals and the support of a strong community an amazing community health center can be born. Serving the needs of its community for a healthier life and standing by its mission to “provide integrated, comprehensive, quality healthcare, serving all in our community”