Acre Family Day Care

CONTACT:

14 Kirk Street
Lowell, MA 01852
(978) 937-5899
www.acrefamily.org

Kathy Reticker, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

The Lowell Acre Family Day Care disseminates a nationally-recognized model that assumes that the integration of immigrant populations into the American economy and their own economic development is significantly enabled by the creation of carefully-trained, home-based, culturally-sensitive, neighborhood family day-care providers. These businesses are not only viable for the proprietors (average annual income: $33,000), but liberate and encourage client mothers to take out-of-home jobs that will provide second incomes for their families, while ensuring high-quality day-care for the children of everyone involved; three benefits for one!

To ensure these benefits, the Acre day-care providers are carefully selected and the training program is both rigorous and effective: at 240 hours, 16 times longer than the 15-hour Massachusetts requirement for a family child care license. The quality of the product has been vetted competitively here in Massachusetts, in 1998 winning the highest score in the state competition for a five-year bid to the Massachusetts Office of Child Care Services. In 2000 AFD received the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Vision 2000 Model of Excellence Award, which declared the program “a model for the nation.” In 2003 USSBA named the founder, Anita Moeller, the MA Home-Based Business Advocate of the Year.

(2000: HUMAN SERVICES: Girls and Women: General)