Four years ago Joanna Rojas was pregnant with her son, Elliott, caring for her 6-year-old son, and homeless, living in a shelter in Lowell.
She secured a job working with Aramark at UMass Lowell, but needed child care. Through Acre Family Child Care, Joanna was connected to child care provider Maria Manrique. Maria opened early, so Joanna could drop her kids off at 5:30 a.m. and then walk to work in time for her 6 a.m. shift; she stayed open late on the days Joanna had to attend training classes. She even gave Joanna a car.
Today, thanks to the support of Maria, Joanna and her children have a better life. She has advanced in her job and has become an engaged, vibrant member of the community.
Maria and Joanna 
Thursday night, Acre Family Child Care honored Maria, who has continually gone above and beyond in her humanity and her care of the families she serves, at their annual meeting, along with former long-time board member and Acre champion Pat Goldstein, of Concord.
Maria is applauded 
Pat Goldstein with Acre Co-Executive Director Zelma Khadar
Goldstein was a good friend of former Acre Executive Director Kathy Reticker, who passed away in 2016. Since that time, she has been working on The Kathy Reticker Forum for Children and Families, a group that awards scholarships to Lowell students pursuing a career in childhood education and advocates for affordable, high quality child care and education for all children and families.
“Lowell has always been a welcoming community where people step up to help each other. There is no better story that exemplifies that spirit than that of Maria and Joanna,” said Senator Kennedy. “It is the spirit on which Acre Family Child Care was built in 1988 and the spirit that continues between so many of the agency’s providers, parents and supporters.”
“Acre Family Child Care was built on neighbors helping neighbors, lifting each other up socially and economically,” he added. “We hear a lot of bad news stories today, but we can hold onto the knowledge that there are always people like Maria ready to go above and beyond to step up to help others in the community, like Joanna working incredibly hard to make a better life for their families, and supporters like Pat who sustain these programs.”
Kennedy joked that he and Lowell Mayor Bill Samaras deserve a pat on the back themselves as child care providers, both caring for their grandchildren at various times during the week.
Acre Family Child Care was created in 1988. At the time there was not one single licensed child care provider in the city’s densely-populated, heavily immigrant Acre neighborhood.
Anita Moeller, then a UMass Lowell student interning for the Coalition for a Better Acre, realized the need both for child care that would allow women to enter the workforce, as well as an avenue to empower immigrant and other women to start their own small businesses.
She launched Acre Family Child Care with 10 women. Today, the organization boasts more than 50 home-based family child care providers caring for nearly 400 children every day, including weekend and overnight care to cater to parents working 2nd and 3rd shift.
Child care providers and clients are a microcosm of the city, displaying the richness of ethnic diversity on which the city prides itself, including those from the city’s newest immigrant groups from Burma and Iraq, as well as women from Cambodia, the Dominican Republic and the United States.
