Director’s Message

Our mission: to promote a healthy, caring and just community for all people through resources, advocacy and volunteer effort. Through the Community Action Center Northfield area families are able to help each other succeed. For nearly 40 years neighbors have been helping neighbors build community and strengthen their lives and the benefit goes both ways.

CAC has been translating this community’s generosity in creative ways by the efforts of many willing volunteers. CAC ensures that families will eat well, and have clothes when they need them. CAC works with families to keep a roof over their head. Our staff and volunteers problem-solve with people in crisis. We work with parents to provide basics and enrichment to their children; our latest success gets kids dental care when they can’t find it elsewhere.

Our mission plays out to the benefit of all concerned. We’re in the caring business!
See on the adjoining pages what this place can accomplish with the cooperation and assistance of many Northfield Neighbors.

Welcome to the Northfield Community Action Center!

– Jim Blaha, Director

Mission Statement

To promote a healthy, caring, and just community for all people through resources, advocacy, and volunteer effort.

History

Community Action Center is a private, multi-service non-profit serving primarily residents of the Northfield School district with incomes of less than 200% of federal poverty guidelines. CAC makes a difference in the lives of families and individuals, addressing basic needs, helping all to understand the impact of poverty and engaging the general community in supportive roles. CAC provides a safety net to more than 900 households in the Northfield area with the help of 2,000 volunteers dedicating 21,000 hours of help in many different ways.

In 1969 the Northfield Community Action Center was founded by a group of community leaders who shared a belief in the power and importance of service — community self-help efforts — that have contributed to social advancement and social service innovations in our community ever since.

The Northfield community is a very different place now than it was in 1969, when the CAC received its first $1,000 in funding from the Northfield Area United Way. One thing has not changed, however. As a leader among nonprofit organizations in our community, the Northfield CAC continues to help local people “give voice to their hearts” through action and philanthropy.

Through its work with low-income people in the Northfield area, the CAC makes a difference in the lives of our neighbors. CAC services encompass programs that address basic needs of individuals and families. Programs and services delivered by the CAC provide a “safety net” for more than 500 local families who have difficulty making ends meet for a wide variety of reasons. The dedicated work of more than 1,000 volunteers from our community, donating more than 10,000 hours of service each year, makes this possible.