AMHERST — Beginning in 2021 with a home school cooperative where young children could be taught to both appreciate their natural surroundings and better understand racial justice, 80 Acres is looking to expand its presence in the area’s educational landscape through a full-fledged K-5 private school.

Since the home school started in Florence, 80 Acres has branched out far beyond its original educational focus, adding a health justice component with a Community Wellness Program that eases access to medical appointments; and a legal practice focused both on housing issues, such as tenants facing eviction or living in properties with mold problems, and immigration law.

It also moved its homeschooling operation to Amherst to be closer to most of the students it serves, who typically number fewer than a dozen. 

“We are trying to respond to what people people say they need,” says CEO and Executive Director Adrienne Wallace, a Northampton resident and Amherst native. “We’re trying to grow in response to what we’re hearing from the community and what’s going on in their lives.”

It is part of an ambitious plan for 80 acres, a nonprofit racial and climate justice organization headquartered at 100 University Drive, that has 22 full-time staff and continues to grow, and which has also been staging community events in Amherst, including a Juneteenth Gala in June and a Black Roots Festival in September.

“The challenge in Amherst is there are so many people with so much, and so many with so little,” Wallace said during an interview in June. “We want to make sure we are getting to people who have no alternative.”

The organization’s website sums up the philosophy in a sentence. “We believe that racial justice and climate justice cannot be achieved separately, so we work together to achieve both ends.”

In its formative time, 80 Acres has largely been advocating through a word of mouth network and stepping in to plug gaps. For instance, organizers saw a need for clothes, so its Community Wellness Program launched a downtown free store that the Amherst Survival Center refers people to. Wallace said the hope is make this mobile as well, bringing clothes directly to underserved neighborhoods.

The Brooks Youth Action Center for younger kids and a corresponding high school program are also being created, providing support with activities that the town has not yet developed through a proposed Youth Empowerment Center.

The presence of 80 Acres corresponds with efforts supporting reparations and promoting racial justice and equity. But it has periodically been a topic in municipal government, as town employees have shifted over to 80 Acres, including members of the Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Service, and the Department of Equity and Inclusion. One of those now at 80 Acres is former assistant DEI director Jennifer Moyston.

Brianna Owen is the chief of staff at 80 Acres. Previously, Owen led the town’s Community Safety Working Group, which made a series of recommendations for supporting the Black, Indigenous and people of color communities, which led to the CRESS and DEI departments.

Wallace said 80 Acres is able to offer competitive salaries, with 32-hour work weeks, and nine paid weeks off, and pays 100% of health insurance premiums. The organization’s funding comes, in part, from the national reparations movement for the harms caused by slavery and racism. “It is funded by people who are committed to reparations,” Wallace said. “They appreciate all we have and want it to go back to the community.”

80 Acres Inc., as incorporated with the state, provides limited information about the organization. In addition to Wallace, leaders include Colin Mew of Pelham as director of finance; president and director William Ames of Los Angeles; vice president and director Emeka Agu of Atlanta; secretary and director Alicia Crayton of Willingboro, New Jersey; treasurer and director Corinne Esipnoza of Cambridge; and director and pediatrician Dr. Sahar Barfchin of Wilmington, Delaware.

At the Oct. 15 Amherst School Committee meeting, people advocated that the committee approve what will be known as the 80 Acres Climate Justice Cooperative School, allowing for the homeschool’s transition to becoming a private K-3 school at first. This will allow the school to go beyond operating within the state’s homeschool law, which allowed a cooperative of parents who teach at the site. In December 2021, the Northampton School Committee gave similar approval to the group’s private school plans.

Among those who spoke to the committee was Reid Parsons, who has a kindergartner at 80 Acres. Parson said features of the homeschooling operation appreciated by parents are the small class sizes and hands-on, often outdoor activities with environmental learning. “It deserves the opportunity to serve more families and to be recognized as a licensed private school,” Parsons said.

“This school is a safe place for kids and families of all backgrounds, but specifically provides a safety net for BIPOC families who may have dealt with bias, either implicit or explicit, in their kids’ schools. These loving parents deserve a choice of where to send their kids, just as white families do,” Parsons said.

Owen, too, called it a wonderful school with an innovative curriculum rooted in racial and climate justice, which “teaches kids about the land, social justice and how they intertwine.”

Wallace told the Amherst School Committee its approval would allow the school to be accredited by the state and for students to have athletic opportunities as well.

Still, even in the current format that began in Northampton and then moved to the Amherst area, Wallace said 80 Acres has seen children thriving in hands-on, active learning. Homeschool children have Freedom Friday each week, for example, where children focus on Black history and climate justice, and specific topics, such as Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman and her experience as a gardener.

Each week the school has concluded with a drum circle led by Heather Hala Lord, a member of the Town Council who also is vice president of the 80 acres’ Community Wellness Program.

The range of needs that 80 Acres hopes to address continues to grow. Understanding that new and expectant mothers have needs, it has put together a Mom Squad; SATurday, providing free tutoring for 10 students preparing for their SAT tests under the organization’s Brooks Youth Action Center; and the group also is doing outreach to people who have been or remain behind bars. “We want to give support to people living in incarceration,” Wallace said.

While based locally, the organization also sees its reach as global, Wallace said. Its efforts include starting a coffee shop to support Kenyan farmers and a climate justice program on the ground for children on Antigua.

“We are partnering with them to build climate justice in the Caribbean,” Wallace said.

80 Acres has also used its community events to support what it’s calling the “Seeds of Change” grant program that will go toward local nonprofits whose work is aligned with its mission.