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One DC area nonprofit exec is absolutely, unequivocally convinced that poverty in the DC region will end during his lifetime. (No, he hasn’t found the fountain of youth.) To hear him speak about how 10,000 volunteers are tackling it, you really believe it to be true.

Mark Bergel left a career at age 38 in health and education in 2001 to launch , a nonprofit in Silver Spring, Md. that provides gently used furniture, work clothes, and job training to anyone who walks in. He and many on the staff of 35 work seven days a week to take on the challenge of collecting and organizing hundreds of items. The people it serves are, on average, families of four struggling to survive on $12,000 a year—in a region where the cost of living is the sixth highest in the country. Many of the people getting help from A Wider Circle sleep on the floor of their apartment and have to eat in the bathroom because it may be the only place in the house that has seating.

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