By Carol McCracken

Jane Makela, president of the board of A Company of Girls, “ACOG” is pleased to announce that this award winning program for at risk girls has finally found a new facility to which it will be moving later this month. Because a lease has not yet been signed with the property owner, Makela would only identify the new location as “in the Bayside area.” It’s expected that the lease will be signed next week.

Makela acknowledged this news during the Dia de los Muertos celebration at the former Adams School on Moody Street on the Hill hosted by “ACOG” earlier today.  The former school has served as the non-profit’s temporary home for the last year or so. The celebration was a rememberance of those have passed through our lives previously and expressed through the art work of numerous students. For ACOG students , that included the school itself. 

 One shrine was a “Goodbye to Adams School” with a guest book for those who wished to express their feelings about vacating the property. One entry said: “It has been such a luxury ’living large’ in Adams School. Now it’s time to leave to live small (but only in space!) Jane Makela.” Plans are underway to turn the former school into moderately priced condominiums by Avesta Housing and the reason ACOG had to vacate the premises.

This is the second move and hopefully the last for this highly acclaimed program in the last two years.  First, it was evicted from its 11 year home at 10 Mayo Street when People’s Regional Opportunity Program sold it to businesswoman Roxanne Quimby in 2006. (It was Quimby’s intent to restore this historic former church, although it has remained empty and mostly unrestored since then). The non-profit spent the last year or so at the former Adams School, although it was always considered to be a temporary resolution to their facility needs by all parties involved.  When the lease is signed next week, a large collective sigh might be heard from the east end down to city hall!

 For more background information, please visit a previous posting on this blog from September 29 – “ACOG” Gets Time Extension At Adams.”