14 Kirk Street, Lowell MA 01852
978-937-5899 phone; 978-937-5148 fax
Training and Small Business Development
© 2006 Acre Family Day Care
Updated April 27, 2007
More honors flow to Moeller
Boston Globe
June 7, 1998
A Lowell woman who started a program that generates jobs and child care for low-income families has been named one of the nation's Women of Vision.
Anita Moeller, executive director of the Acre Family Day Care Corp., was presented with her Gloria Steinem Award during a National Salute to Women of Vision ceremony in New York City. Steinem and other celebrities were on hand for the event.
Several weeks ago, Moeller also was recognized at a national forum for family and women's issues attended by Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The nonprofit Acre Family Day Care Corp. trains low-income, minority women to run their own day-care businesses, teaches them how to plan their businesses and manage money, and helps them save for long-term goals. This may include buying a home or attending college.
Moeller was a 19-year-old student at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell in 1987 when she began interning with the Coalition for a Better Acre in Lowell. Upon running a survey on child-care needs, she learned that the city's Acre neighborhood lacked even a single licensed facility, and that none of Lowell's child-care services reflected the city's diversity.
Two years later, with financial support from the Ms. Foundation, Moeller founded the Acre Family Day Care Corp. In the last 10 years, Moeller and her staff have trained welfare recipients and Latina, African-American and Cambodian women to become self-employed family day-care providers, earning an average of $27,900 or more annually.