In 2025, nearly 37,000 students from 18 school districts poured into the Career Commons area at the EO hub in Abingdon, which features a grocery store, banks, a medical clinic and more than a dozen other simulated businesses.
Students can scan and bag groceries, tinker under the hood of a vehicle or see what it’s like to brush or floss the teeth of a dental patient.
Career Commons, spanning more than 17,000 square feet, was designed to help students start thinking at an early age about that big question everyone must eventually answer: What am I going to be when I grow up?
The colorful, inviting space involves 20 local partnering businesses and agencies, from the Virginia Department of Transportation and Appalachian Power to Burwil Construction and Food City. The grocery chain, which is headquartered in Abingdon, not only has a brick storefront with a mini grocery store, it also features a simulated distribution center that helps pupils think beyond the obvious jobs of cashiers and baggers to the truck drivers, technology employees and pharmacists.
“Kids have an abundance of energy and an abundance of desire to explore,” said Travis Staton, president and CEO of EO. “Being able to see firsthand what jobs and occupations are available here in this region is a big part of that work in helping them understand that they don’t have to leave our region for a good job with a livable wage.”
Career Commons, which resembles a village, is the most popular spot in EO’s $26.5 million Regional Workforce and Child Development Hub, which opened in October 2024.
Zoe Mason and Audreanna McCracken, both seventh graders at Wallace Middle School in Bristol, toured the career simulators in October along with the rest of their class.
Zoe was particularly drawn to a Lakeshore Learning exhibit, which featured educational toys sold by the store. She thinks she might want to be a teacher, but she’s not sure yet. She is sure that the career exploration at EO now has her thinking about her future career path.
Audreanna, who is considering a medical career, agreed. She wants to become a phlebotomist, a medical professional who draws blood, so she most enjoyed the Ballad Health clinic, which included virtual reality features and allowed students to try on the different outfits worn by health care workers.
As the daughter of a truck driver for Food City, Audreanna said the grocery chain’s distribution center area, which features forklift and 18-wheeler simulators, helped her learn more about what her father experiences daily in his job.
“I thought it was really cool to see the different jobs you could possibly go into and it had a very good hands-on part where you could see what the jobs would be day-to-day,” said Audreanna, who added that she hopes to stay in the region after she graduates.
The hub project, which started in 2023, transformed a vacant Kmart building in the Town Centre shopping center off Interstate 81’s Exit 17 into an 87,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility.
On the other end of the building is the Ballad Center for Early Learning, which is operated by Ballad Health and provides child care and development to children from 6 weeks up to 5 years of age.
The building also houses the GO TEC teaching lab. GO TEC, or Great Opportunities in Technology and Engineering Careers, was designed to develop a regional workforce by engaging students primarily at the middle-school level and then continuing into high school.
GO TEC labs have also been placed in about 20 middle schools in the region, Staton said. So far, 1,167 students have been involved with or enrolled in GO TEC classrooms around the region, according to EO.
The hub is also the workplace for the nearly 50 employees of EO, short for “Endless Opportunities.” The nonprofit had been the program arm of United Way of Southwest Virginia before spinning off in 2024 into a separate entity.
EO opened the facility in hopes of helping solve two of the main problems that hinder economic growth in Southwest Virginia: a shortage of available workers for existing jobs — which is heightened by the number of young people who leave the area to find work — and a serious shortage of child care.
Staton couldn’t find any examples of the type of facility he wanted to build, so EO developed the hub from scratch, and the plan is now drawing praise from state and local officials who say it will likely become a model for other communities in a similar boat.
Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Bryan Slater, the state’s labor secretary under Youngkin, have called the facility a model that they expect other communities to follow.
“I think this is a classic example of when all stakeholders come together,” Slater said in November. “There was state money in it, federal money was involved through the governor’s discretionary grant, Ballad Health was involved, Steve Smith with Food City was heavily involved as was the workforce board and the community. Everybody came to the table and made it happen.”
He added that communities need to do more of that kind of innovative thinking that can help them solve problems that hold them back.
Staton said the hub has drawn interest from across the country, and groups from surrounding states have visited.
The facility is far from complete. Several new programs have been added since it opened nearly 18 months ago, including a summer camp that started last year.
EO also has big plans for the future, including a major expansion that would provide an opportunity for more agencies to locate there and collaborate with EO. The mission of the new space is not yet known, but Staton said it’s possible it will address long-term health and well-being for local residents.
The busy hub also now houses local offices for the Virginia Employment Commission and the New River/Mount Rogers Workforce Development Board. GO Virginia Region One has also placed a regional training lab in the facility, Staton said.
Last winter, EO forged a partnership with Washington County Public Schools, offering a satellite career and technical education classroom designed for students who are pursuing careers in early child care and education and want to become teachers, according to Staton. Four high schools — Abingdon, Holston, John Battle and Patrick Henry — are involved in the program, Teachers for Tomorrow.
The students go to the hub in the mornings and leave shortly before lunchtime. They work out of one of the labs, do regular coursework and have a certified instructor. Through the dual-enrollment program, they earn college credits while still in high school.
They also gain experience through hands-on learning at the early learning center, Staton said.
“It’s really a state-of-the-art opportunity for a kid to come off a school campus onto a satellite campus to learn through instruction from the teacher and professor here, but also then to engage in the work itself as part of their classroom. That’s really unique,” he said.
So far, the program has had two cohorts over two half-semesters, serving 24 juniors and seniors, Staton said.
Washington County Superintendent Keith Perrigan called the program a “phenomenal opportunity.”
“We have students who leave the class with a child care certification, which is a huge need in our area. But also, if they want to continue, they’re starting their teacher ed program by getting those dual-enrollment courses out of the way. So, it kind of fast-tracks them to go ahead and get their teachers’ license, which fills the need that we have with the teacher shortage.”
The county school system also based one of its preschool classes for 3-year-olds at the EO hub. The facility is in a central location and draws children from across the county, according to the superintendent.
Locating the class at the hub also helps with the need so many parents have for child care, he added.
Filling a childcare gap
After being a stay-at-home mother for two years, Kelsey Hodges of Chilhowie longed to return to her nursing career — she missed helping patients at Johnston Memorial Hospital in Abingdon.
But she knew it would be difficult, and expensive, to find quality day care for her two children.
She managed to place Harrison, who’s 5, and Brynn, 3, in a small, in-home day care, but she worried about the lack of structure and learning curriculum for the kids there.
Then she heard about the day care portion of EO’s new hub, and her children have been enrolled there since it opened. She’s also paying much less than she expected through her participation in Ready Together, a pilot program that provides contributions toward day care costs from the state and employers.
She and her husband, Herbert, now pay $520 per month for both children. That’s less than she was paying before and much less than the $1,400 a month that a friend pays for two children, Hodges said.
And the couple is thrilled with the child care and the instructors at the center.
“They have lesson plans and they do state testing,” she said. “And all the teachers there are so kind and I couldn’t ask for anyone that loved my kids more. Just this past week, they had a Valentine’s dance for the kids.”
She added that she doesn’t worry about her kids “one bit” when she drops them off every day.
“Knowing that my kids are safe and loved, it just means everything,” she said.
She’s also confident that Harrison will be ready when he starts kindergarten later this fall.
But she is a little worried about whether the center will have a spot for her third child, 3-week-old Callan, when she goes back to work in May,
Providing quality child care is the other half of EO’s mission at the hub. The shortage of child care options across Southwest Virginia is a significant obstacle to the ability of some parents to work; even if parents can find a slot at a day care, some simply can’t afford the escalating cost, especially if they have more than one child.
In 2024, EO completed the SWVA Child Care Landscape report, which found:
- Southwest Virginia has an estimated 12,701 licensed child care slots, but nearly twice the number of children 5 and under, 23,930.
- Most of the day cares in Southwest are run through Head Start, a federal program for children from low-income families.
- Child care sites are challenged because of inadequate pay and benefits, trouble finding qualified personnel and declining interest in the field.
- The average annual cost of child care in Southwest Virginia ranges from $8,736 to $10,556.
Currently, 124 children are enrolled in the EO hub’s day care program, which employs 26 instructors, according to Todd Norris, Ballad’s chief population health officer.
The program was designed for up to 300 children; Norris said the plan is to increase the number, but a barrier to that growth is a lack of state funding. The state offers subsidies to help parents with the cost of child care, but there’s currently a wait list of thousands across the state due to high demand.
“One of the bigger impediments that we’ve had in terms of enrollment and service to lower-income families has been the issues that have existed with state subsidy wait lists, and we’re seeing some pathways to that being addressed,” Norris said. “We’re looking forward to being able to continue to grow enrollment once those things increase the demand or the practical ability of families to access the center.”
Several bills related to early child care and education are under consideration by the General Assembly, including one that would require a phased reduction of the state’s child care subsidy if there is an increase in family income, one that would provide matching funds to encourage employers to contribute to workers’ child care costs and another that would establish a cost estimate for funding needed to address demand for early childhood care and education.
Ballad leaders have been concerned for years about the region’s lack of child care, which affects the ability of its essential employees to show up for work at its hospitals and medical clinics across Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee.
In recent years, the system has gone from operating three child care centers to having a total of nine, including the facility in Abingdon and two more in Southwest Virginia, one in Lebanon and the other in Norton.
“For our team members, it gives them access to high-quality child care that didn’t really exist in the region before the expansion,” Norris said. “It strengthens their ability to focus on their jobs and know that their children are well cared for, that they have a stable, safe, nurturing environment that they can send their children to while they are working.”
The available child care also helps Ballad recruit and retain employees.
To accommodate as many schedules as possible, the facility runs extended hours, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays, and it closes only two days per year, Christmas and Thanksgiving.
Ballad employees, whose children make up about half of the numbers in the early learning centers, get a 30% reduction in the cost of child care, Norris said.
The children are fed three meals and a snack every day, which is included in the cost.
Internships and apprenticeships
As part of its mission to strengthen the region’s workforce, EO is working with employers and schools to increase opportunities for internships and apprenticeships for high school and college students.
Through an alliance with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership that was announced in October, EO will serve as the regional intermediary for employer engagement, which means it will recruit businesses, help them design internships and make sure there are “measurable outcomes” that expand access to paid internships, according to an EO news release.
So far, EO has facilitated 66 high school internships, according to Logan Nester, EO’s marketing director.
EO is also now working with the Appalachian Highlands Community Dental Center in Abingdon, which provides care for uninsured and underinsured people. Recently, EO placed its first student apprentice at the center’s lab.
Last June, EO officials announced approval of a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to start a new regional initiative to prepare the next generation of health care professionals in Southwest Virginia.
Project HEALTH, a three-year program, will expand access to training, career development and support services for youths interested in health care careers. It will serve in-school students between the ages of 14-21, and those who are not in school between the ages of 16-24 in Norton and the counties of Buchanan, Dickenson, Lee, Russell, Scott and Wise.
Already, 71 students have participated in the initiative, including 31 who received financial assistance to help pay for the costs of continuing their education.
The next chapter
Down the hill in the same shopping center, sitting perpendicular to the EO hub, is a vacant former Food City store that will be the site for EO’s next big project.
EO, VDOT working to improve access to the hub
EO is working with the Virginia Department of Transportation to connect two roads, Cook Street and French Moore Jr. Boulevard, which would provide a direct route between its workforce and child development hub, which is off Interstate 81’s Exit 17, and the interstate’s Exit 14.
EO is just off Cummings Street, the busy main route into Abingdon. Connecting the roads would allow people to avoid having to take Cummings to I-81 or Lee Highway to get to Exit 14.
The direct route would offer easy access to another busy, growing area that is home to the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center, Virginia Highlands Community College and the county government building, which are all just off French Moore Jr. Boulevard.
It would also open that area to more economic development, said Travis Staton, president and CEO of EO.
VDOT is in the early design phase of the $62 million project, according to Michelle Earl, communications manager for VDOT’s Bristol District. A public hearing will be held in 2027 and VDOT has tentative plans to hold a public information session this summer, she said.
Last September, the nonprofit announced it had acquired the 45,000-square-foot building on about 5 acres, along with an adjacent 1-acre outparcel.
Staton wants to build on the success of the hub, and EO officials are now trying to figure out how best to use the site. Staton said he believes it will likely have something to do with improving health and well-being.
The properties will mark the next chapter in the agency’s ongoing work to transform Southwest Virginia through “strategic redevelopment that strengthens community well-being, connection and opportunity,” according to the news release announcing the purchase.
There hasn’t been room to accommodate all of the groups that want to locate at the EO hub, Staton said; the second site will be an opportunity for more to be involved.
The idea is to have a multiuse facility that could host community and events, while also offering health and recreational activities, Staton said. But EO officials want to know what the public thinks should be done with the site and plan to launch a community survey at some point.
Staton said the new project will be accomplished over about five years.
EO put out requests for proposals from organizations that can put together a master plan and help with the community engagement process.
EO will also conduct a feasibility study to see if the project would work financially and what kind of impact it would have on the community. The next step would be a design-build phase involving architects and general contractors. That would be followed by construction, which would likely take 12 to 16 months, he said.
Staton said that he’s not sure yet whether EO will rehabilitate the current building, raze the structure and construct a new one, or some combination of the two. The building is in pretty good shape, although it will need a new roof soon.
So far, the biggest challenge has been making people aware of EO and all that’s being accomplished at the hub, he said.
“We’re doing great work in early care and education, workforce innovation, community and economic development and people see a large building with a big EO logo and some people haven’t learned yet what’s happening here in this space and some of the work that’s taking place. There’s still lots of learning that needs to take place among the community,” Staton said.