History

Goodwill Industries - In the Beginning, A Brief History
Goodwill Industries began in Boston's South End in 1902, when Edgar J. Helms accepted a challenge to serve as a settlement worker among the area's poor immigrants. Inspired by compassion for people with disabilities and other disadvantages, he sought a way to improve their quality of life. Helms scoured the wealthier areas of Boston, asking for unwanted clothing and goods. Poor men and women were then put to work, restoring the items and learning trades and skills as they worked. These items were then resold and the money was used to pay the worker's wages. This was the birth of Goodwill Industries as we know it today.

 For more than 90 years, Goodwill Industries of Tulsa has been providing work opportunities and job training for people with barriers to employment. The Rev. Wilkie C. Clock, pastor of the West Tulsa United Methodist Church, opened the first Goodwill office in the basement of the church, and Goodwill Industries of Tulsa was incorporated on August 3, 1927.

It wasn't long before Goodwill needed a new building to house and employ the several hundred people who were being served. Volunteers built a new building with used bricks that Goodwill workers had cleaned for a penny a brick. Goodwill was headquartered in this building next to the church until 1943 when it moved to the old Brady Hotel, at the corner of Main and Archer.

Donations from the public are processed and sold in our stores to fund training and employment programs. 

Many of the programs and services have changed over the years to meet the needs of the community, but the basic philosophy upon which Goodwill was founded has remained the same.

People working. Lives improved.