The Acreage Speaks — on Facebook
When the going gets tough in The Acreage, the tough turn to a Facebook group called The Acreage Speaks. With more than 10,000 members, it serves as a gathering place for help, advice, complaints and controversy.
The group — among the largest of its kind in Palm Beach County — was founded by Sandra Love, a longtime Acreage resident and former supervisor for the Indian Trail Improvement District, which oversees roads, canals and other infrastructure in The Acreage.
Love launched the group in 2012 in the wake of Tropical Storm Isaac, which dumped more than a dozen inches of rain on the area and flooded The Acreage. With many of her neighbors trapped by rising water, Love saw an opportunity to give them a place to ask for help — and to vent.
Those same inundated neighbors were commenting on local government Facebook pages, without results. “Their comments were being deleted,” Love said.
Thus the name of the group: “I started it to give our Acreage an actual voice,” she said.
Within weeks, the group’s numbers swelled to 1,000. More than 10,000 people now call the group home, using it as a source for a variety of topics, including homeownership tips — “Does anyone know a good tile guy?” — and the basics of life in a rural community — “What kind of snake is this?”
But those swelling numbers pose a challenge for Love and Holly Beck, who helps administer the group by reviewing new members and comments.
No controversial topic is off-limits, from politics to complaints about local businesses. After the Valentine’s Day school shooting in Parkland that left 17 people dead, group members began discussing gun control. More recently, The Acreage Speaks has been a place for people to weigh in on the Publix boycott spurred by Marjory Stoneman Douglas High student David Hogg.
“There’s days when I’d like to just shut the group down,” Love joked. But she said she never would, not after the way she has seen it work in her neighbors’ lives. “It’s given more help to our community than any of the other pages,” she said.
Take the days after Tropical Storm Isaac. People began volunteering boats and supplies to those trapped by the water. Since then, if there is a death or a family in need, Love has seen members of her group step up in extraordinary ways, offering food, money and places to stay. “That makes me proud,” she said.
Love, who runs Indian Trail’s Hamlin House, said she enjoys seeing people share community events and things for families to do. She and Beck try to put a lid on advertisements, but they encourage people to ask for recommendations for local businesses.
She’s been amused by how people turn first to her group for news. If people are stuck in traffic, the first place they turn is The Acreage Speaks to ask if anyone knows what’s going on instead of calling the Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office nonemergency phone number, she said.
“People have gotten so used to be being able to just pick up their phone, get on Facebook and find the answer,” Love said. “It has definitely been a great tool for everyone to use.”