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Western Egyptian is a not for profit service organization which was chartered in 1965, with an eighteen member board of directors, serving Jackson, Monroe, Perry, and Randolph Counties.

The board consists of public officials, low- income representatives and members of major organizations and groups of the community.

Western Egyptian provides a range of services and activities which utilize all available resources to deal with problems of the low income and disadvantaged residents.
 

                                     MISSION OF THE AGENCY
To stimulate a better focusing of all available Local, State, Private, and Federal Resources upon the goal of enabling low-income families, and low-income individuals of all ages to attain the skills, knowledge, motivations, and to secure the opportunities needed for them to become self-sufficient

"OUR NAME"
According to John Allen’s book “Legends and Lore of Southern Illinois, there are two different versions of how a
section of Southern Illinois became to be called “Egypt”.

One version says the region was so named because of places bearing Egyptian names from the valley of the Nile such as Cairo, Karnak, Thebes, Coshen, etc.

Another version which seems to be the one more widely accepted is that the winter of 1830-31 was one of the longest and most severe winters that residents of the area had ever known.

Snows came early reaching a depth of three feet or more, remained late in spring of 1831 and severe frosts continued until May. Spring and summer were extremely cool which delayed planting of crops.

A September frost killed much of the un ripened corn.
 

Only one section of the area which was in Franklin County produced a corn crop. Farmers traveled to this place to get corn for their livestock, corn meal and other corn products. Many of the farmers were Bible readers and remarked that the sons of Jacob went to Pharaoh’s Egypt for corn and jokingly said that they too, were going to Egypt for corn. Thus, the nickname “Egypt” came into use. No record of this term was found prior to 1832 but once applied, it rapidly came into general use.

Western Egyptian received it name from the organizing board in 1965 as the area is located to the west of “Egypt”. Economic Opportunity Council is the result of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964.