Acre Family Day Care was begun in 1988 as a project of the Coalition for a Better Acre. The program was developed in response to two related community needs: jobs and child care. The results of a community-wide survey concluded that it would be better to train local residents to work as family child care providers than to have the agency open a child care center, because a network of family child care homes would not have the physical space limitations of a child care center.Acre Family Day Care provides training programs in English, Spanish and Khmer that enable women to run licensed family child care businesses in their own homes.

Acre Family Day Care has been serving low-income, immigrant women and families in Lowell since 1988. Their mission is to help women build home-based family child care businesses, earning a living wage while providing community-based child care to the families of Lowell.Acre Family Day Care was awarded the Vision 2000 Model of Excellence Award from the United States Small Business Administration (SBA). The Administrator of the SBA, Aida Alvarez, visited Lowell to present the award to our staff and child care providers and referred to our program as a model for the nation.

For more information, please visit http://www.acrefamily.org/