Coalition For A Better Acre Inc

Cba operates the acre's only food pantry, serving an average of 500 acre households each month, providing culturally appropriate food and spices in a grocery store environment. The pantry made over 699 home deliveries to the elderly and disabled in the first half of 2025 alone. Cba also provides complete thanksgiving turkey dinners to acre residents, with plans to distribute 350 each november.

Cba's yes! Program provides 80 youths ages 5 to 13 participate in our free yes! (youth educational success) program, enjoying year-round exposure to enrichment and learning activities. After school, kids receive homework and academic support, career exploration, and time to enjoy the outdoors. Each day ends with a healthy meal cooked in the cba kitchen. During school vacations and summer break, youth enjoy field trips to museums, parks, and historic sites, helping to close the experience gap between low-income youths and their higher-income peers. We created yes! At the request of working parents living in cba housing who lacked access to affordable after-school care within walking distance of home. Parents report feeling confident their children are receiving resources demonstrating the many pathways to a bright and successful future while the parents are at work.

Cba hosts events that foster neighborhood engagement, including acre festival and resource fair, where 50 organizations help link families to resources available throughout lowell; acre clean-up, where up to 30 teams work side by side to beautify and celebrate the community; national night out, in collaboration with the lowell housing authority, the bike connector, and first responders. And cba's annual meeting each october is planned entirely by members, who decide on the theme, decor, food, and entertainment.

Cba promotes voter participation in response to concerns that voter turnout in the acre is consistently the lowest among lowell's districts, cba has redoubled its efforts to educate and explain, inform, and encourage residents to vote. This includes door knocking, tabling at community events, and our ever-popular candidating event, modeled after speed dating, where candidates move from table to table with five minutes to field questions, explain their platforms, and encourage participants to vote.

Cba offers free basic english instruction during the day and is plans to an evening option in 2026. Esol reduces isolation and provides basic english proficiency to look for jobs, navigate public transportation, and talk to children's teachers. It also provides the skills needed for students to go on to more intensive esol instruction, but which have long waiting lists.