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For 50 Years…

Care, Commitment, and Community

has been at the heart of CHP Berkshires.

Join Me in Celebrating 50 Years of CHP

Over the past 50 years, our community has changed in countless ways and so have the health needs of those we serve. But through it all, one thing has remained constant: our shared commitment to equity, compassion, and care. Your belief in our mission has helped us open new facilities, expand our services, and respond to crises and other community needs.

We invite you to join us throughout the year in honoring the legacy we’ve built together – and in imagining our future.

A portrait of CHP's CEO, Bethany Kieley
Graphic of Fireworks
Graphic of Fireworks
Read CEO Bethany Kieley's Full Message

Join Me in Celebrating 50 Years of CHP

Over the past 50 years, our community has changed in countless ways and so have the health needs of those we serve. But through it all, one thing has remained constant: our shared commitment to equity, compassion, and care. Your belief in our mission has helped us open new facilities, expand our services, and respond to crises and other community needs.

We invite you to join us throughout the year in honoring the legacy we’ve built together – and in imagining our future.

A portrait of CHP's CEO, Bethany Kieley
Graphic of Fireworks
Graphic of Fireworks
Read CEO Bethany Kieley's Full Message

Celebrate with Us!

 

Live on the Lake

Wednesday, August 6th

Lake Onota, Pittsfield, MA 01201

A free concert for the whole family on the shores of Onota Lake in Pittsfield. Enjoy live music, games, and prizes!

National Health Center Week

August 3rd-9th

Join us in celebrating and recognizing the vital work of health centers across the nation. Recieve a gift when you visit any one of our practices to this week! 

Celebrate with Us!

Live on the Lake

Wednesday, August 6th

Lake Onota, Pittsfield, MA 01201

A free concert for the whole family on the shores of Onota Lake in Pittsfield. Enjoy live music, games, and prizes!

National Health Center Week

August 3rd-9th

Join us in celebrating and recognizing the vital work of health centers across the nation. Recieve a gift when you visit any one of our practices to this week! 

For 50 Years…

Care, Commitment, and Community

has been at the heart of CHP Berkshires.

In 1975, a Great Barrington pediatrician named Dr. Thomas Whitfield became a change-maker.

He took action after seeing a growing number of children in his practice for kindergarten physical exams — children who had not seen a doctor since birth or infancy. Children lacked immunizations. Many had medical problems or delays in language, social, and cognitive skills, due to isolation. 

In response, he founded Children’s Health Program, with a mission to bring healthcare to rural children and to offer support services to their parents.He and his staff traveled back roads in a station wagon looking for houses with toys outside and diapers on the line, in an effort to connect with their parents.

“We weren’t exactly sure how many kids might be out there, nor do we know anything about their health status until Tom Whitfield opened his pediatric practice and all of a sudden he was seeing kids who were sicker than he had seen kids in a long time.”

-Linda Small

As the needs of the Berkshire community grew, CHP responded.

“The Commissioner of Public Health David Mulligan, said to me, Linda, the department will not continue funding the program as as it exists now. We need to have you become a federally qualified health center… that would change the dynamic immensely, because a federally qualified health center had to serve everyone, all ages.”

-Linda Small, CHP’s First Executive Director 

After 25 years of serving only children,  Children’s Health Program made a giant leap and obtained designation as a federally qualified health center, expanding CHP healthcare to adults in 2000.

“The evolution of CHP and the CHP of the Berkshires is remarkable. I never imagined that they would be able to pick up, the dental component, in the way they did, nor the expansion of, physician practices up and down the county.”

-Linda Small, CHP’s First Executive Director