After 48 years, Wellesley ABC scholars get a home of their own

It’s been a long time coming, but the Wellesley A Better Chance program has moved into a home of their own. After boxing up decades-worth of furniture, household goods, photo albums, holiday decorations, and all the other stuff that accumulates after living in one place for 48 years, it’s time for the program’s scholars and volunteers to make new memories in a new location.

The move became necessary after in Fall 2018, the ABC program learned that Wellesley College would no longer make available the yellow house at Norfolk Terrace. Since 1972, that college-owned property had been a constant in the lives of the students as they attended Wellesley High School as part of a boarding-school type program. The 4 – 6 students who are part of ABC in any given year are talented and promising young women of color who seek an academically rigorous high school curriculum.

After the news sank in, the program’s Board announced a “Home of Our Own” capital campaign to buy a new house. On April 1, 2020, ABC reached its ultimate goal and closed on a big, beautiful 4-bedroom home that can potentially expand to six bedrooms as needs change from year to year.

As 20 masked and socially distanced volunteers worked to move, unpack, and organize, the excitement cancelled out any lingering feelings of loss as the Norfolk Terrace house slowly emptied out. Volunteer Debora White says the next step is “unpacking and organizing to prepare to welcome six students in August to their beautiful new Wellesley ABC home.”