PBN October 28, 2022

story that contains millions

BY AMANDA GRAY | Contributing Writer

(Editor’s note: This is the second installment in a monthly series highlighting some of the region’s unsung manufac turers that make products essential to the economy and, in many cases, our way of life.)

IT’S NO SURPRISE that it feels like a sauna on the factory floor at Miniature Casting Corp. in Cranston.

After all, some of MCC’s machines run at about 800 degrees, melting zinc alloy – a mixture of metals, including aluminum and copper – which is injected into reusable molds and cooled by circulating water to solidify into various shapes. With a hiss and a

bang, miniature metal pieces are ejected into small containers.

The process lasts only a minute, sometimes just a few seconds, but is repeated over and over, with operators moving among the maze of equipment, checking temperatures and ensuring everything runs smoothly.

MCC President Stephan Toljan points to one machine that alone churns out a staggering 2,400 to 2,600 pieces an hour.

ELECTION 2022

MONEY MATTERS

BY JACQUELYN VOGHEL | Voghel@PBN.com

After large rainstorms, a 100-liter tank that Dunn, a graduate student, uses to conduct research on detecting toxic “forever chemicals” in water is often overflow ing due to leaks in the roof and cracks in the ceiling, Dunn says.

And because the building isn’t equipped with climate control technology, the tempera ture within the lab sometimes means that the water or chemicals are too hot to use, further delaying crucial research.

“It’s taken a lot of flexibility and persistence to see some projects through,” Dunn says. “But we just deal with what we have.”

Paula S. Bontempi, dean of the School of Oceanography, is equally dismayed with the facility and suspects that the school has lost out on attracting other talented researchers due to aging infrastructure.

Dunn and Lohmann, an oceanography professor and Dunn’s adviser, are “two of our top researchers,” Bontempi says. “And these are the facilities we have to offer them.”

That’s why, in November, the state will ask voters to authorize a $100 million bond issue for repairs and new construction at the university’s Narragansett Bay Campus, which hosts the Graduate School of Oceanography, Coastal Institute and one of the few ocean engineering programs in the U.S.

Dunn and Rainer Lohmann are among the top researchers at the Univer sity of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography, but it’s tough to tell based on the condition of their lab space.

REGIONAL PHILANTHROPIC OPPORTUNITIES

METALHEAD: P. Thomas Kenny Jr. pours melted zinc into the casting machines at Miniature Casting Corp. in Cranston.

PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

CLARIFICATION:

growth in

the Oct.

state’s

CORRECTION:

the Oct. 14 cover story, “A growing

legalized

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Stacey Messier

BY JACQUELYN VOGHEL | Voghel@PBN.com

1What is your background in en trepreneurship, and how does this inform your vision for CIC Provi dence, which is a coworking community for entrepreneurs?

In my 20s, I started a design and mar keting firm. At that time, there was a burgeoning group of young entrepre neurs, as well as a newly formed Arts & Industries Council, which I co-led and [where I] taught a variety of work shops. When I read the job descrip tion for the GM of CIC in Providence, I immediately thought back to how I approached the community there and knew I could deploy something similar to benefit CIC’s client companies in Providence.

2As industries grapple with shifting workforce needs and expectations, what trends are you noticing among CIC’s client companies?

While many other cities and states have had a challenging time bringing people back to the office, we’re seeing quite a consistent desire for employees to be in person. Beyond each individual workspace, our innovation campuses create valuable opportunities for com panies to network and share resources with industry peers, which helps them grow faster and better.

3

How has the offshore wind indus try been evolving within CIC?

Rhode Island placed itself on the map when the Block Island Wind Farm started to spin its turbines in 2016. Since then, CIC in Providence has welcomed over 20 offshore wind com

panies to our innovation campus, and we continue to talk with and offer tours to prospective businesses that stretch across the supply chain for this rapidly growing industry.

4What do you see as being CIC’s role within Providence’s inno vation network, and in Rhode Island?

CIC in Providence is uniquely poised to enable and scale our state’s strategic priorities around the blue economy and life sciences. From our client-led in dustry clusters to the expertise and col laboration of our partners, we see our innovation campus as one that sparks the momentum behind the fruitful connections and creative collisions that happen in and outside of our hallways.

5

What resources are missing for startups in Rhode Island, and how is CIC working to bridge these gaps?

Startups are challenged by a variety of speed bumps depending on their stage. We have incredible community partners … [such as] RIHub, and their Venture Mentoring Services program that helps fledgling high-growth start ups find their way to scale and sustain ability. n

manager,

DINING OUT | BRUCE NEWBURY

Focused on native food

A RESTAURANT WITH A NAME such as Owamni is evocative of images of exotic food and the exciting prospect of discovery that can be part of dining out.

Owamni is the name of the James Beard awardwinning restaurant that is the talk of the food world these days. It has the promise of discovery, but the cuisine is not new.

Sean Sherman, chef, restaurateur and Indig enous food advocate, has taken the lead in raising awareness of native foodways. Sherman presented at the 2022 University of Rhode Island Honors Col loquium in early October on “The (R)evolution of Indigenous Food Systems of North America.”

A member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, Sherman was born and raised in Pine Ridge, S.D. Cooking in kitchens across the U.S. and Mexico for more than 30 years, Sherman is renowned internationally in the culinary movement of Indigenous foods, focusing on the revitalization and evolution of Indigenous food systems throughout North America and showcasing Native American cuisine in today’s world.

Sherman spoke as part of the fall Honors Colloquium “Just Good Food,” which was presented in person and streamed live. The chef further shared his passion and his heritage in an interview.

For over 25 years, the contention I have made is that we all ate the same thing once upon a time. The turnover is related to the empanada, the samosa and the knish.

Sherman sees things as more complicated. In 2017, he and his team presented the first decolo nized dinner at the prestigious James Beard House in Manhattan, N.Y. His first book, “The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen,” received a James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook and was chosen as one of the top 10 cookbooks of the year

by the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Smithsonian magazine.

Last year, Sherman opened Owamni, Minneso ta’s first full-service Indigenous restaurant, which received the James Beard Award for Best New Res taurant this past June. Although his company in Minneapolis is named The Sioux Chef, do not refer to Sean Sherman as “the Sioux chef.” He is Lakota. The reference to the particular native tribe is much more instructive.

As Sherman pointed out in our interview, when we use terms such as Native American or even Indigenous, we are referring to people who lived anywhere from the Arctic Circle to Mexico. Each tribe had its own foodways. The common thread is nature. All found food and prepared food from what was on the land or, in the case of the Narragansett, from the sea.

The chef is an ambassador for the exciting and interesting cuisine that an award-winning artisan creates seemingly with out effort. He is an advocate for more Indigenous restaurants to open.

Here in our region, we have always had so much to make our food wholesome and delicious. Honey, maple, fruits, herbs, the bounty of the land.

We discussed a soup on Sherman’s menu that was made from chokecherries – an extremely tart cherry that is indigenous to the Great Plains where Sherman grew up. It reminded me of a chilled blueberry soup that was created by the chef at the Waybury Inn in Vermont. He explained that his soup, which was also chilled, was an homage to his grandmother who made it often when he was a little boy using chokecherries that were all around their home. We can all relate to that imagery.

The URI Honors Colloquium is the university’s premier lecture series, hosted by the university’s

Honors Program and open to the public. This year’s free lecture series is bringing several experts to South Kingstown and online on Tuesday evenings through Dec. 13. n

“Dining Out With Bruce Newbury” is broadcast locally on WADK 101.1 FM and 1540 AM and on radio throughout New England. Contact Bruce at bruce@brucenewbury.com.

GUEST SPEAKER: Sean Sherman, chef, restau rateur, Indigenous food advocate and owner of Owamni restaurant in Minnesota, spoke recently about “The (R)evolution of Indigenous Food Sys tems of North America” as part of the 2022 Hon ors Colloquium at the University of Rhode Island.

COURTESY NANCY BUNDT

Reduce, reuse, refill

BY CHRISTOPHER ALLEN | Allen@PBN.com

LESS THAN 6% of plastic waste is recycled, with a majority end ing up in landfills, according to a report released in May by en vironmental groups Last Beach Clean Up and Beyond Plastics.

The ReFill LLC owner Debra Cowdin’s business philosophy is based not on recycling, but on the reuse and refilling of con tainers and bags used to store household commodities.

The small shop on Spring Street in Newport welcomes both current practitioners and wouldbe converts.

Customers can arrive with empty or partially empty con tainers to be weighed and filled with nontoxic and plant-based home goods such as shampoo, soaps, dishwashing liquid, tooth paste and sunscreen. The prod ucts are weighed and purchased by the ounce, with most offerings ranging between 30 cents and $4 per ounce.

“It’s depressingly huge the amount of waste many of us became used to,” said Cowdin, a mathematics teacher-turnedentrepreneur who opened The ReFill in June. “In one way, this is part of the solution. It is about building habits. This may not be world-changing, but it is commu nity-changing.” n

Haunted history on foot

Boat tours also

BY JACQUELYN VOGHEL

COURTNEY EDGE-MATOS HAS BEEN acquainted with the supernatural from a young age. As a child, she and her fam ily lived in a haunted house owned by her grandparents in rural Vermont for more than a year.

“Different family members had their own experience,” Edge-Matos said. “Seeing shadows moving oddly, seeing a face in the window looking back at you.”

When her family met the house’s former owners, they echoed similar experiences and claimed the ghost was their deceased uncle. But EdgeMatos suspects more than one spirit dwelled in the house, and after a while the family felt unwelcome.

While the experience was often startling, Edge-Matos said, it didn’t frighten her away from the super natural. Since 2006, Edge-Matos has run Providence Ghost Tour, a guided journey through the East Side’s haunted history on foot or by boat.

Though Edge-Matos’ family sold the Vermont house when she was about 9 years old, she found a re newed interest in the supernatural in college, tuning into paranormal TV shows, going on her own ghost hunts and working as a guide for Ghost Tours of Newport.

Shortly after graduating, she and a friend who shared her interest in the paranormal decided to launch

OWNER: Courtney Edge-Matos

TYPE OF BUSINESS: Paranormalthemed walking and boat tours

their own ghost tour business. The pair hit the books, and the streets, looking for reputable hauntings. They scoured the internet for Rhode Island ghost stories, left flyers on people’s doorsteps or tacked onto telephone poles asking for tips on local hauntings, conducted inter views, and combed through library archives.

“The goal that we had was to identify a death that could be crossreferenced to someone’s reported haunting,” Edge-Matos said, “so we could start to figure out what were the reasons for a haunting, who were these entities.”

After about nine months of gathering stories and researching, they had enough material to begin offering tours.

The tour and its destinations have evolved significantly since those early days, Edge-Matos said. She keeps up a similar verification process for haunted destinations, though the initial ideas come easier now.

“People will share stories with us, and I try to dive in,” she said.

LOCATION: 60 Congdon St., Providence

EMPLOYEES: About nine (varies seasonally)

Not all tips meet her standards for the tour, but “when I hear a lot of evidence, a lot of consistent sto ries of the sites. … When I can kind of find the story and the truth there, that’s when something will make it onto the tour.”

The current iteration of the walking tour takes visitors on a 1.8-mile loop through the East Side, lasting about an hour and 40 min utes. The business also works with Providence River Boat Co. to offer a separate water route with its own ghost stories.

Edge-Matos has also developed her own knack for finding ghosts over the years, she said.

“Maybe my eyes are a little wider, or I’m more open to it, so it finds me,” Edge-Matos said. “I’ve been able to find ghosts every where, which is part of the appeal. It crosses culture, it crosses all walks of life, it crosses geography.”

And while some come to the tours looking for a scare, Edge-Ma tos said that while the experience can be creepy, she thinks of ghosts as human spirits with their own stories.

“I think it’s actually more beautiful and romantic than the terror people want to associate with ghosts, but it’s still spooky, still scary,” Edge-Matos said. n

YEAR FOUNDED: 2006 ANNUAL SALES: WND

GHOST GUIDE: Courtney Edge-Matos indulged her interest in the paranormal and supernatural by launching Providence Ghost Tour, a guided journey through the East Side’s haunted history either by foot or by riverboat in partnership with the Providence River Boat Co.

PBN PHOTO/ELIZABETH GRAHAM

Voghel@PBN.com

REFILLING STATION: Debra Cowdin, owner of The ReFill LLC in Newport, started the business to help people cut down on single-use plastic waste by finding ways to reuse and refill those containers.

PBN PHOTO/DAVID HANSEN

The city’s student housing dilemma

BY CLAUDIA CHIAPPA | Chiappa@PBN.com

A PROPOSAL TO LIMIT the number of student renters per apartment in Providence has sparked fears that such a move would exacerbate the severe affordable housing shortage across the city.

The city’s ordinances already pro hibit more than three college students from living in a single-family home, but a proposed amendment intro duced by City Councilwoman Helen Anthony would extend the restric tions to units in multifamily homes. City officials say the new amendment would apply to approximately 29,000 units.

Anthony’s proposal has numerous supporters, particularly among home owners who live in neighborhoods with high concentrations of college students on the East Side near Brown University and in Elmhurst near Providence College. But it also has nu merous detractors, including students and owners of multiunit properties.

The proposed change fueled a heated debate at the City Council’s ordinance committee meeting on Oct. 19. Another hearing is scheduled for Nov. 16.

Anthony issued a statement that described college campuses as “bleed

ing into our neighborhoods, creating pressure on current housing stock.

We need to do what we can to preserve housing for our residents and to main tain our neighborhoods.”

She said the amendment was in tended to “spark conversation about a new path forward.”

Council President John J. Igliozzi called Anthony’s idea an “overreach ing response” to a local issue of large parties, unruly behavior and trash overflow. “[The proposal] has the potential to have a negative impact citywide,” he said, referring to the

implications on housing, which is already in high demand and short supply.

Brenda Clement, director of HousingWorks RI at Roger Williams University, says the affordable housing advocacy group isn’t taking a stance on the proposal. But, she added, one thing that’s not in dispute is that vacancies are “well below” a healthy rate.

“The reality is that there’s just not enough units for everybody,” Clement said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island Inc. submitted written testimony opposing what the organization called an “anti-student” ordinance.

“If four students currently sharing housing space can no longer share it, it means that somebody has to find a new place to stay,” said Steven

Brown, ACLU Rhode Island executive director. “If there’s limited housing right now, passage of an ordinance like this can only make it worse.”

Brown says the ordinance would also fail to solve the noise issues. “If the goal was to stop out-of-control par ties, they can be started by three room mates as easily as four,” Brown said.

The ACLU already filed a lawsuit in 2016 seeking to strike down the existing ordinance limiting student housing in R-1 zones – or zones for single-family homes – but the state Supreme Court ultimately upheld the ordinance.

If a more-stringent amendment were to be passed, Brown said a new lawsuit is “a possibility.”

For Rita Danielle Steele, president of the Greater Providence Board of Realtors, the amendment overlooks the root of the problem: a lack of city resources to enforce code compliance and hold property owners account able.

“The problem itself is not the number of student occupants in a property,” Steele said. “The problem is existing code compliance account ability and enforcement. We need to be careful as a community to be mind ful of the unintended consequences and targeting of specific groups that shortsighted policies can have.” n

‘There’s just not enough units for everybody.’

BRENDA CLEMENT, HousingWorks RI at Roger Williams University director

tronic library that holds information from thousands of patients who have undergone successful ablations and, using a machine-learning algorithm, guides the doctor on where to make the lesions so that they are most likely to work.

“There’s no other technology out there that has real data from an actual case,” said Jeff Martin, vice president of marketing for Volta, a health technology company that has offices in Marseille, France, and em ploys about 10 people in Rhode Island. “That’s why I think this technology is truly unique because of the machinelearning aspect of using actual case information.”

The hope is that this software will make ablation more effective on peo ple with persistent atrial fibrillation – people who have suffered from it for several consecutive days and need treatment. In those cases, ablation can sometimes fail at permanently curing the condition and a second or third procedure is necessary. But this software will help tailor those abla tions and increase their likelihood of success.

AI put to the test during cardiac procedures

BY CLAUDIA CHIAPPA | Chiappa@PBN.com

Anew artificial intelligence technology is helping physicians perform ablations –minimally invasive surgeries used to treat certain heart conditions – more efficiently, and only 11 U.S. hospitals are using it.

One of them is in Rhode Island.

Rhode Island Hospital became the first hospital in New England to use Volta Medical Inc.’s VX1 artificial intelligence software, designed to help treat persistent atrial fibrillation as part of a national study led by Volta, a company with headquarters in Providence and France.

“It’s very exciting for all of us to be in Providence, which is also the headquarters for Volta, and be able to participate with Lifespan [Corp., owner of Rhode Island Hos pital] and Brown [University] in this cuttingedge innovation,” said Dr. Daniel Philbin, cardiac electrophysiologist and director of the arrhythmia service at the Lifespan Cardiovascular Institute

Atrial fibrillation is a heart condition that causes the heart to beat much faster than normal. It occurs when the beating in the upper heart chambers is irregular, which causes the blood not to flow correctly to the lower chambers. The condition can lead to dizziness, chest pains and moreserious health issues such as heart failure,

blood clots and stroke.

With an estimated 12.5 million cases worldwide, atrial fibrillation is the most common type of treated heart arrhythmia. In Rhode Island alone, about 5,500 people suffer from atrial fibrillation.

While the condition sometimes disap pears on its own, in other cases treatment is necessary, which can vary from lifestyle changes or medications to surgical proce dures in more-severe cases.

The most common surgical treatment is ablation, a surgery that burns or freezes tissue to create small scars on the heart to block the electrical signals causing irregular heartbeats.

Ablations are usually performed using a catheter that is fed through the blood vessels and into the heart. It is usually up to the physician to identify the best areas on the heart for ablation. But the procedure does not always fix the irregularities.

With Volta VX1, targeting those opti mum areas should be made easier because the software analyzes the patient’s electro grams in real time and communicates with the surgeon where to freeze or burn tissues through a 3D map of the heart on a nearby monitor.

How? The software consults an elec

‘Our goal is to reduce the amount of redo procedures.’

AIDED: Dr. Daniel Philbin, a cardiac elec trophysiologist and director of the arrhythmia service at the Lifespan Cardio vascular Institute, in the operating room with Volta Medical Inc.’s VX1 monitor that assists in abla tion surgeries.

“It’s very debilitating as a patient and if you have to do multiple proce dures, it can be really tough,” Martin said. “Our goal is to reduce the amount of redo procedures, or if you have a redo procedure, make sure it’s effective.”

Between 2017 and 2021, more than 1,400 ablations were performed across the entire Lifespan system, says Renee Bernard, the director of Lifespan’s cardiovascular services. At Rhode Island Hospital, 671 ablations were performed between 2016 and 2021, according to Philbin. Of those, 34 were performed using VX1.

The study that the hospital is participating in started last year, but enrollment will continue until early 2023. Martin says researchers are ex pecting to have results in early 2024. The goal is to assess whether the use of Volta’s equipment improves the success rate of ablations.

Eleven hospitals in the U.S. and 12 in Europe are participating in the randomized study, which will involve 382 patients. Hospitals were chosen based on the number of patients with persistent atrial fibrillation and based on their equipment and sys tems.

Final results from the study are still over one year away, but previous clinical studies conducted by Volta showed promise. In recent studies, ablating the areas of interest indi cated by the software led to an almost 90% success rate for termination of the arrhythmia, Martin says.

“We’ve had the software for a little under two years,” Philbin said. “We have found it to be very promising.”

VX1 is not available commercially yet, despite having received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in 2020 and earning a similar approval in the European Union. But Volta is planning to do a limited market release in 2023 and to fully launch the product once the final results of the study are in.

“It will be likely to help a lot of patients,” Philbin said. n

MACHINE

PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO

JEFF MARTIN, Volta Medical Inc. vice president of marketing

New ‘hub’ will support disadvantaged businesses

BY CLAUDIA CHIAPPA | Chiappa@PBN.com

note: A version of this story was first published on PBN.com on Oct. 24.)

PROVIDENCE – A new small-busi ness hub expected to be open by early next year will focus on minority- and women-owned businesses, says Nina Pande, executive director at Skills for Rhode Island’s Future

The Providence-based nonprofit is launching the Small Business Resource Hub with a $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Develop ment Administration announced last month. The hub will connect smallbusiness owners with access to techni cal services and specialists in sev eral business-services fields, such as legal, accounting, human resources, finance, marketing, strategic planning and more.

Skills for Rhode Island’s Future hopes to use this initiative to help dis advantaged small businesses recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and “democratize” access to services.

“This is a pilot project to build a shared-service approach so that small businesses can access high-quality, business expert advice at no cost to them,” Nina Pande said. “This has been brought on by the COVID-19 pan demic. It costs more to do business, so a lot of times professional services are not accessed because the cost of doing business is through the roof right now.”

The idea behind the project was born before the COVID-19 pan demic, from the nonprofit’s desire to strengthen the workforce of minorityowned businesses in the trade busi nesses. But once the pandemic hit, Skills for Rhode Island’s Future soon realized businesses across the board were experiencing similar business challenges.

“Time and time again, what we heard from the small businesses is, ‘We need help with our capacity,’ ” Pande said. “Many small businesses start because they have an idea or a product, but that doesn’t necessar ily translate to having capacity to do anything.”

While many already-existing initia tives focus on training business lead ers and teaching them technical skills, such as accounting, marketing or financing, finding the time to attend these classes or apply them to real-life problems can be challenging. And for businesses that are trying to keep their operations running, finding and hiring the right experts to meet their needs can be a “daunting and costly endeavor,” Pande said.

But the new business hub will bridge that gap, connecting small businesses with experts who will offer their services for free. This will

allow businesses to hire a lawyer, an accountant, a marketing expert or a human resources agent, targeting their exact needs.

“We want to make sure that we strengthen those areas so they can fo cus on why they started their business to begin with,” Pande said.

For business advocates in the state, programs such as this are meeting the needs of many small businesses.

“As our small businesses continue to adapt and grow, moving past CO VID we need additional resources of this type to ensure a thriving future,” said Rick Simone, managing director for the Rhode Island Small Business Coalition. “These particular services that will be offered are vital to the suc cess of any small business.”

And to make it even easier for busi nesses, business leaders won’t have to worry about traveling far to meet with the experts.

This will be a “decentralized hub,” said Pande, with a central location in Providence, satellite locations in five other communities and remote access online. Also, to ensure access to all businesses, experts will have the op tion to travel to a business’s location to provide services.

“If you’re a small-business owner and you can’t even get away from your business to meet with us, we want to make sure that we come to you,” Pande said.

The $4 million grant that funds the pilot comes from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act Recovery Assistance, which provides financial assistance to help communities respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was obtained thanks to a $1.7 million matching fund provided by R.I. Commerce Corp., through the Rhode Island Rebounds technical as sistance program. n

PLATINUM SPONSORS:

SPONSORS:

SPONSORS:

Adler Pollock & Sheehan P.C.

Health Partners

Foundry

Architects

helped the thousands of men, women, and children experiencing homelessness in our community this year.

FINANCIAL ADVISOR Nixon Peabody Simon Consulting Services

HUB MASTER: Nina Pande is ex ecutive director at Skills for Rhode Island’s Future, a nonprofit that is launching a new resource hub for struggling small businesses.

PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

R.I. Manufacturers Association to hold exhibit and show Nov.

THE

WEDNESDAY, NOV.

INFO AND REGISTRATION: bit.ly/3Vr3TPl

Take the lead

THE CENTRAL RHODE ISLAND Chamber of Commerce will hold its monthly LEADS Lunch event, hosted by the Radisson Providence Airport Hotel. Attendees will have an oppor tunity to share their 60-second pitches to help others better understand what they do, what they have to offer and who they need to meet. This is also an event that will help promote connec tions with potential customers. Lunch will be served.

FRIDAY, OCT. 28, NOON TO 1:30 P.M. $10/members; $25/nonmembers Radisson Providence Airport Hotel, 2081 Post Road, Warwick.

INFO AND REGISTRATION: bit.ly/3fsGrAX

Honoring leaders

THE RHODE ISLAND Black Busi ness Association will hold its annual Awards Gala. The gala, the associa tion’s largest fundraising event, will return to being an in-person event after two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event will also recog nize individuals who exhibit excel lence in leadership, professional achievement and who have a heart for giving back to the community. Neil D. Steinberg, CEO and president of the Rhode Island Foundation, will be the event’s keynote speaker.

FRIDAY, OCT. 28, 6-11 P.M. $100 Omni Providence Hotel, 1 West Exchange St., Providence.

INFO AND REGISTRATION: bit.ly/3BcBgfI

Chamber celebration

THE ONE SOUTHCOAST Chamber of Commerce will hold its annual meet ing, as well as its Apex and Brayton Awards event. The meeting is an opportunity to join other business and community leaders and celebrate businesspeople working together for the future of the community. It also includes the election of the Chamber’s board of directors, recognition of outgoing board members and the pre sentation of the Apex Awards, which recognize businesses and nonprofits within the southeastern Massachu setts area.

THURSDAY, NOV. 3, 7:30 A.M. $40 White’s of Westport, 66 State Road, Westport.

INFO AND REGISTRATION: bit.ly/3MpyCrW

Interested in having your businessrelated event included in What’s Happening? Contact PBN Researcher James Bessette at (401) 680-4838 or Research@PBN.com.

CONNECTING AND GROWING: The Rhode Island Manufacturers Association will host its Exhibit Show on Nov. 16 at the Crowne Plaza Providence-Warwick in Warwick.

COURTESY CROWNE PLAZA PROVIDENCE-WARWICK

Understand financials

THE SOUTH EASTERN Economic De velopment Corp., in cooperation with the U.S. Small Business Administra tion, Massachusetts Small Business Development Center and SCORE, will offer a virtual workshop in which participants will learn how to read a balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement, and keep on top of their business finances. The work shop will also cover how a small-busi ness owner can anticipate financial needs to operate the business more efficiently through a deeper under standing of their financial picture. At tendees will be provided with a free business plan guide that includes financial templates and will be intro duced to free and confidential busi ness assistance resources available to them locally and regionally.

THURSDAY, NOV. 3, 10 A.M. Free Online.

INFO AND REGISTRATION: bit.ly/3RRC7bL

Making your mark

KNIGHT MEMORIAL LIBRARY will hold a workshop on trademarking. The workshop will offer an in-depth look at the Rhode Island trademark

program available through the R.I. Department of State. Learn the differ ence between the four different types of intellectual property, the difference between state and federal registra tion, the benefits of registering a trademark, and tips and tricks for filing an application.

MONDAY, NOV. 5, 11 A.M. TO NOON. Free

Knight Memorial Library, 275 Elmwood Ave., Providence.

INFO AND REGISTRATION: bit.ly/3S4Ox0k

Meeting by the sea

THE NEW ENGLAND Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives will hold its annual conference. The two-day event will allow chamber executives from all over the region to connect with one another and share best practices. Multiple panel discus sions and presentations will also be part of the conference.

MONDAY, NOV. 7, THROUGH TUESDAY, NOV. 8, 9 A.M. TO 6 P.M. $189/members; $289/nonmembers

Newport Harbor Hotel and Marina, 49 America’s Cup Ave., Newport.

INFO AND REGISTRATION: bit.ly/3CUpBEq

WHAT’S HAPPENING

Election talk

THE NORTHERN RHODE ISLAND Chamber of Commerce will hold its monthly Eggs & Issues event, hosted by Kirkbrae Country Club. Wendy J. Schiller, Brown University political science professor and chair of the uni versity’s International & Public Af fairs Department, will be the keynote speaker discussing the conclusion of the election season and where the state will move forward.

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 9, 7:45-9 A.M. $25/members; $40/nonmembers Kirkbrae Country Club, 197 Old River Road, Lincoln.

INFO AND REGISTRATION: bit.ly/3es7lc0

Connecting over coffee

THE CENTRAL RHODE ISLAND Chamber of Commerce will hold its monthly Morning Coffee networking event, hosted by Crystal Waters Hot Tubs. The event will bring together lo cal business professionals and entre preneurs to meet in a relaxed setting. Coffee will be served.

THURSDAY, NOV. 10, 8-9 A.M. $5/members; $15/nonmembers Crystal Waters Hot Tubs, 487 Jefferson Blvd., Warwick.

FOR

INFO AND REGISTRATION: bit.ly/3yBroeU

Deflationary tech

THE GREATER PROVIDENCE Cham ber of Commerce will hold a vir tual seminar titled “Technology as a Deflationary Force in an Inflationary Economy.” Envision Technology Ad visors LLC CEO and President Todd Knapp and Kahn, Litwin, Renza & Co. Ltd. Director of Enterprise Solutions Anthony Mangiarelli will discuss the economic forces and trends at work, talk through technology solutions that business professionals should consider, and share the successes of companies that took a forward-look ing approach despite deeply uncertain economic times.

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 30, 1-2 P.M. Free Online.

INFO AND REGISTRATION: bit.ly/3RVWAw8

UPCOMING PBN EVENT: The 2022 Manufacturing Awards Program will be held on Thursday, Nov. 10, from 5:30-8 p.m. at the Omni Providence Hotel. For more information, visit PBN.com. For sponsorship opportunities, contact Advertising@PBN.com.

The proposal is one of three statewide ballot questions asking Rhode Island voters to approve a total of $400 million of borrowing for infrastructure improvements around the state. The questions come at a time when interest rates are rising, and borrowing costs are sure to climb with them.

In addition to URI’s request, voters will also con sider a $250 million bond issue for the construction and renovation of the state’s public school build ings, and a $50 million bond issue for what have been dubbed “green economy” projects.

The questions may sound familiar.

In 2018, a bond issue for the state’s school buildings for $250 million was approved by a 3-to-1 margin. That same year, voters OK’d a $47.3 mil lion Green Economy and Clean Water Bond by a similar margin. That vote was followed by the decisive statewide approval of a $74 million Beach, Clean Water and Green Bond in 2021.

Along with the statewide bond requests, vot ers in 31 cities and towns will face another crucial question with financial implications: whether to allow recreational retail sales of cannabis in their municipalities (Editor’s note: see story on Page 12), which would open the door to collecting a 3% tax on whatever sales take place within their borders.

QUESTION 1: UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND’S NARRAGANSETT BAY CAMPUS

URI President Marc B. Parlange has only been at the university for a little more than a year, but he is optimistic that voters will approve the $100 million bond issue in support of the bay campus.

He says the improvements at the 153-acre prop erty overlooking the west passage of Narragansett Bay will not only provide new research opportuni ties, but it will also boost the state’s promising blue

economy sector. (Earlier this year, URI fell short in a federal grant competition called the Build Back Better Regional Challenge that could have fetched as much as $100 million to boost the state’s blue economy.)

“For every state dollar invested, we return more than $6 to the state,” Parlange said. “But more importantly, we see it as part of the opportunity to build an entrepreneurial [hub] in Rhode Island.”

He says that the facilities, as they stand now, can’t support this vision of innovation.

“They are not suitable for real research,”

Parlange said. “They’re not suitable for education programs, and they’re not suitable for collabora tion with industries.”

In 2018, voters approved a $45 million bond to fi nance an initial phase of improvements to the Bay Campus. That work included the demolition and replacement of a research vessel pier and pump house, an upgraded marine operations facility, and a $17 million ocean robotics laboratory building.

The university says the pier construction should be completed next spring, and the marine

The cannabis question: Allow sales or not?

BY JACQUELYN VOGHEL | Voghel@PBN.com

THE WAY THE STATE LAW legalizing recreational cannabis is written, it’s easier for cities and towns to allow the sale of marijuana in their communities than it is to keep it out.

The only way a municipality can prohibit sales within its borders is by asking voters to reject can nabis sales through a referendum on the November ballot.

Thirty-one cities and towns have taken that route, leaving it up to residents to decide whether cannabis retailers will be allowed to set up shop in their communities, assuming they can obtain a license.

State Sen. Joshua Miller, D-Cranston, one of the champions of legalized recreational marijuana use, admits he was surprised by how few Rhode Island cities and towns chose to automatically put a welcome mat out for recreational cannabis sales in their communities.

Officials in Cranston, Pawtucket, Central Falls, Exeter and Foster decided to allow sales without a community vote. And another three communities – Providence, Warwick and Portsmouth – already host medical cannabis dispensaries, which will be allowed to double as retail outlets when sales become officially legal on Dec. 1.

“What I’ve heard from most [local] officials is that they’ve put it on the ballot more or less as a confirmation of favorability, rather than an expec tation that their town would not be interested,” Miller said.

But that’s not the case everywhere.

One of the communities where Miller says the outcome isn’t so clear is Middletown, where of ficials have made it clear they don’t want recre

ational cannabis sold regardless of the referendum’s results. And while state law says the decision to reject it ultimately lies with voters, town officials think they’ve found a loophole.

Although town voters will find the cannabis sales question on the local ballot, the Middletown Town Council earlier this year adopted zoning laws in tended to prohibit most nonmedical cannabis sales.

Town Councilor Terri Flynn says the ordinance counters the wording on the ballot question, which she says poses an “all-or-nothing” approach to al lowing growing and retailing.

The zoning law allows growing and testing can nabis in town but prohibits retail sales. While the town stands to earn thousands of dollars in tax rev enue if the ballot measure were to pass, Flynn has concerns that recreational sales pose an “increased risk to our [youths].”

If voters OK recreational sales, Miller doubts that an ordinance can completely ban sales in town. But Middletown officials can probably make it more difficult, he says, especially because they established the zoning restrictions before the Rhode Island Cannabis Act became law in May.

While the law allows communities to “impose reasonable safeguards on the operation of canna bis establishments,” these regulations must not be “unreasonable and impracticable.”

The stakes of the vote go beyond just allowing or prohibiting cannabis sales. Communities that allow it stand to collect a 3% tax on licensed sales within

their borders. (The state will collect another 17%.)

But even if communities say “yes” to cannabis shops, there’s no guarantee they will appear in those communities. The state is limited to issuing 33 retail licenses, and nine will go to licensed medical marijuana dispensaries.

While Miller thinks only three or four communi ties may reject cannabis sales, North Providence Mayor Charles A. Lombardi believes the opposition may be stronger than that.

Lombardi, president of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, opposes recreational sales and thinks that most municipalities wouldn’t have posed the question to voters if they weren’t resis tant to the idea.

“If they didn’t care or wanted it, they wouldn’t want to give the taxpayer the opportunity to exer cise their rights,” Lombardi said.

Lombardi and Town Council President Dino Autiello say the council as a whole has opposed recreational sales, and the officials are publicly encouraging voters not to pass the measure.

But Autiello, while also opposed to in-town sales, has a different view on posing the question to voters.

“I’m a big proponent of listening to my constitu ents,” Autiello said. “Any opportunity we have to put an item before voters, I think we should take, especially for something like this.”

If the ballot measure does pass, Lombardi says the town would look at certain regulations such as limiting long business hours and keeping dispensa ries out of certain areas in town.

“They’d have to treat it just like a liquor license,” Lombardi said. “It can’t be right next to a school.” n

FULL SCOPE: Paula S. Bontempi, dean of the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography, uses a scale model of the Narragansett Bay Campus to explain the planned improvements if a $100 million bond issue is approved by statewide voters.

PBN FILE PHOTO/JACQUELYN VOGHEL

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12 operations facility and ocean robotics laboratory are expected to be ready in May 2024.

The upcoming ballot measure would help finance the construction of a new, 77,000-squarefoot Ocean Frontiers Building; the replacement of two ocean engineering facilities; the renovation of the 30-year-old URI Coastal Institute headquarters; and the addition of 9,000 square feet to the Marine Geological Samples Laboratory.

QUESTION 2: RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL BUILDINGS

When R.I. Education Commissioner Angé lica Infante-Green visited East Providence High School recently, it gave her a look into the future, a cutting-edge building that provides teachers and their students with the resources for success.

“When you walk in there, you just see that the new school really caters to the needs of the stu dent,” Infante-Green said.

But that wasn’t the case until recently. Before the fall of 2021, when the city opened the new high school, students were learning in an aging, 70-yearold building. In the end, the state provided over $95.3 million in support of the $189.5 million school, according to the R.I. Department of Education

The successful project also brought another, more troubling visit to mind for Infante-Green: a week earlier, she visited another school and noticed mold on the ceiling. And in other Rhode Is land communities, some students continue to learn in buildings built as long as a century ago.

“If you’re walking into a school that your grand mother went to and it hasn’t changed, that’s a prob lem because our society has changed a great deal, and we need to keep up to compete nationally and worldwide,” Infante-Green said.

The ballot measure asks voters to authorize a $250 million bond “to provide funding for the construction, renovation and rehabilitation of the state’s public schools.”

The new request comes four years after vot ers approved $250 million in borrowing for public school building improvements. It was part of the plan developed in 2017, officials say.

That’s when the Rhode Island School Building Task Force, co-chaired by General Treasurer Seth Magaziner and then-Education Commissioner Ken Wagner, recommended the two bonds appear on the 2018 and 2022 ballots.

The first bond allowed renovations or construc tion in 33 cities and towns and six charter schools, according to RIDE.

At the local level, meanwhile, seven munici palities are seeking a combined $1.4 billion in additional school bonds, says Mario Carreno, chief operating officer at RIDE.

Those municipalities are: Warwick, $350 million for two new high schools; Pawtucket, $330 million for a unified high school; Middletown, $235 mil lion for several new schools; East Providence, $148 million for a new middle school, early childhood center and elementary school renovations; North Providence, $125 million for three new elementary schools; Providence, $125 million for various work; and Westerly, $50 million for a new elementary school and repair work.

“[Question 2] is definitely a statewide source, but we’re seeing many local communities realizing the need for these improvements are essentially taking it up themselves,” Carreno said.

QUESTION 3: GREEN ECONOMY

If approved, the $50 million in borrowing would be split among nine uses, the biggest of which would be a $16 million allocation for matching grants of up to 75% in support of municipal resil iency projects that restore or improve coastal habi tats and river floodplains.

So far, the state’s Mu nicipal Resilience Program has provided funding for 35 projects in 27 municipali ties, according to the R.I. De partment of Environmental Management

Another $12 million would be earmarked for the Roger Williams Park Zoo to fund a new education center and an event pavilion. Right now, the zoo operates its education center out of a 30-year-old building and does not have an event pavilion.

Zoo Executive Director Stacey Johnson says the center and pavilion are needed to match the grow ing demand for programming and overall atten dance. The proposed facilities would also support programs such as the popular zoo camp, a zoo management course run in partnership with URI, and community outreach efforts.

Johnson says the zoo is aiming to improve programming to draw more visitors from beyond Rhode Island, noting that around half of last year’s attendees were out-of-staters. Indeed, typical an nual attendance is about 650,000 but hit a recordhigh of 800,000 in 2021. Attendance is projected to be about 700,000 in 2022.

“The zoo has about a $75 million annual eco nomic impact on the state, so it can only grow as

we develop our programs more and reach a wider audience,” Johnson said.

The remaining bond money would be divided among a $5 million small-business energy loan program; $3 million toward Narragansett Bay and watershed restoration; $3 million toward forest and habitat restoration; $4 million toward brownfield, or industrial-site, cleanups; and $7 million toward protecting open space, split into $3 million for the State Land Conservation program and $4 million for local matching grants.

FINANCIAL IMPACT

Michael DiBiase, CEO and president of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, says the ballot measures align with RIPEC’s recommenda tions for state investments, even though borrowing costs are expected to increase as interest rates rise.

“It’s an accepted method of financing long-term projects like it is in business,” DiBiase said. “I think the borrowing levels are well within accept able levels, so I do think it’s a reasonable ... approach.”

The state’s Public Fi nance Management Board recommends the state’s debt-service-to-generalrevenue ratio stay below 7%. The ratio is projected to sit at 5.58% in fiscal 2025, according to a 2021 RIPEC report.

The Ocean State’s 5.1% ratio of debt service to rev enue is ranked 18th nation wide – the median among U.S. states is 4.2%. That said, DiBiase acknowledges that this round of bonds will be affected by higher infla tion and interest rates.

“The interest rates to be paid on this debt will be higher, and that will increase the expense of the bonds,” DiBiase said, noting that the state previously borrowed at interest rates below 3%, but rates are now as much as a percentage point higher. The voter handbook estimates a rate of 5%, which would put the total cost of borrowing $400 million over 20 years at $641.9 million.

The anticipated interest rate will likely remain relatively low, he says, and shouldn’t significantly impact the overall affordability of the bonds if they’re approved. “The rates could continue to go up,” DiBiase said. “But I think you have to look at it from a historic point of view, and the fact that these payments are spread out over 20 years.” n

POTENTIAL PAVILION: Roger Williams Park Zoo Executive Director Stacey Johnson shows the area where a new, $12 million educational facility and events pavilion will be built if Rhode Island voters approve a $50 million “green economy” bond measure.

PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

‘I think the borrowing levels are well within acceptable levels.’

MICHAEL DIBIASE, Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council CEO and president

SCHOOLWORK: A construction crew member works on the East Providence High School months before it opened in the fall of 2021. The new school was made possible due in part to the approval in 2018 of a $250 million bond measure. Rhode Island voters will be asked to approve an additional $250 million construc tion bond measure for school buildings in November.

PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

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The molded products that leave MCC’s factory have a multitude of uses. Some will be used in medical devices, others in electronics or in heating systems, still others will serve as housings for electronic components in cars.

“Ninety-nine percent of the people who drive by this road prob ably have no idea what goes on here and that it touches every part of their lives,” Toljan said. “If you drive a car, it likely has a part made here, or if you go in your basement and there’s a heating valve cap, we probably made it.”

Over the past five years, MCC has produced more than 30 million parts annually from its unassuming, one-story, 8,500-square-foot building in the Howard Industrial Park. The company expects to top 40 million pieces this year.

That might explain why MCC is in the midst of a $3 million expansion, building an addition onto the existing structure that will allow the factory to grow to 22,000 square feet. Along with the added space and equipment will come added jobs. Before the expansion, MCC had just under 30 employees. About 12 more will be hired.

STAY OR GO?

It’s a growth story that almost didn’t have a happy ending for Rhode Island.

When it became clear MCC would outgrow its Cranston factory several years ago, Toljan con templated the advice of other companies in his industry that recommended moving to a state in the South, where the cost of operating a business is generally lower.

It’s a move that David M. Chenevert, executive director of the Rhode Island Manufacturers Associa tion, has seen other companies make.

“Workers’ compensation is the highest in the country, in addition to high energy costs,” Chen evert said, adding that corporate taxes are also high in Rhode Island. “All these things can be very challenging for small operations, [most] of which employ under 25 people.”

At one point, Toljan was in the process of look ing for a suitable place to set up shop in South Carolina, and the majority of MCC’s staff had expressed a willingness to relocate.

That’s when R.I. Commerce Corp. stepped in last year with an offer of $410,000 in tax credits through the Rebuild Rhode Island program that would help finance a major $3 million expansion of the existing factory. The tax credits only become available once the project is completed.

That tipped the scales for Toljan in favor of staying put.

“The fact that we are stay ing allows us to continue our local relationships, like col laboration with the University of Rhode Island, and the Provi dence and Cranston workforce development board,” he said.

“We can also continue with our long-standing relation ships with our local suppli ers.”

The relationships include the Capstone Project, run by URI professor Bahram Nass ersharif at the University of Rhode Island. The program, which started in 2007, con

machines,” said Keith Marden, vice president of mechanical engineering. “When a client comes to us with a project that isn’t compatible with the zinc die-cast method, we can work with them to design a tool that works for their specific project.”

Indeed, Stephan Toljan says sales more than doubled between 2014 and 2018. And in 2021, the company experi enced a 15% growth in sales and is pro jecting another 7% increase this year.

CASTING WIDE NET

The future continues to look bright for several reasons.

The expansion will increase MCC’s capabilities, allowing the company to house new machines and platforms that, for instance, can produce parts up to 4 inches in diameter, an increase from the previous 2-inch capacity.

In addition, MCC has seen the re turn of customers who had previously bought from overseas suppliers.

nects engineering students with the chance to get real-world experience working with companies throughout the state.

In fact, MCC recently hired three URI engineer ing students.

“Because students don’t have that many years of experience in the field, they are still very openminded and creative when it comes to solving problems,” Nassersharif said. “They often produce results that are hugely beneficial to their educa tion, and also the companies.”

R.I. ROOTS

Miniature Casting Corp.’s Rhode Island roots can be traced back to the 1960s, when a precious jewelry manufacturer partnered with a Canadian die-cast company to form Precision Cast, which operated on Eddy Street in Providence.

First, the company produced zippers until Japa nese manufacturer YKK dominated the industry. In 1980, Robert Piacitelli, a mechanical engineer and businessman, bought Precision Cast and identified markets in the die-casting industry with potential. Piacitelli renamed the company Minia ture Casting Corp.

The company went on to be a leading supplier of a crucial component for Polaroid’s self-developing film camera and added other manufacturing capa bilities.

MCC moved to Cranston in 1989.

Piacitelli stepped down as company president in 2014, and Toljan – Piacitelli’s sonin-law – was appointed as the top executive, coming from a marketing and sales position at Swarovski North America Ltd.

Angela Piacitelli Toljan joined her husband as senior vice president of operations two years later.

MCC has managed through an upheaval in the industry. Some companies have van ished in consolidations, while others moved operations to China and Mexico.

According to the North American Die Casting Asso ciation, there used to be more than 700 die-casting companies in the U.S. It’s now down to 250 nationwide.

Still, MCC executives feel confident that zinc die casting isn’t going anywhere soon.

“We are very hands-on and fortunate that we have the skills to design many of our

“We worked with a company about 10 years ago based in New Bedford that recently called us out of the blue asking if we still had the tool that made the part for them, which we did,” Toljan said. “They were having issues with their supplier and realized that moving production to China wasn’t as cost-effective as they hoped.

“In most industries, supplier consolidation is a big topic,” Toljan said. “Companies, especially dur ing the pandemic, have seen a shift in the global supply chain. Many are starting to realize they don’t want the risk of too many suppliers all over the place that they can’t control.”

The company says it’s particularly proud of the diversity of its customers.

MCC produces auto parts for major companies such as Chevrolet but gives just as much consider ation to local industries.

The company once made the weights for Hasbro Inc.’s Weeble Wobble that kept the egg-shaped figu rines from falling. Stephan Toljan holds up a tiny L-shaped toggle for a Craftsman Tools wrench.

Angela Toljan brings out a decorative finial made for a small business in Warren that produces birdhouses.

“We don’t turn away customers, even if the or der is small or something we’ve never encountered before,” she said.

About 10% to 11% of its business is dedicated to Rhode Island-based customers.

“Many manufacturers tend to focus on one in dustry, often automotive parts, doing up to 75% of their business there,” Stephan Toljan said. “While there is good money in that industry, staying in one place is risky.” n

CHIEF OPERATORS: Angela Piacitelli Toljan, senior vice president of operations at Miniature Casting Corp., and her husband Stephan Toljan, president.

PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

MEN AT WORK: Hector Fernardo, left, die caster, and Roy Aronson, machine operator, work on one of the machines at Miniature Casting Corp. in Cranston.

PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

& DESIGN

includes replacing more than 1,000 feet of bulkhead, replacing four com mercial vessel docks, replacing crossbracing and piles on numerous docks, asphalt repair work and upgrading firefighting and electrical capacity.

A lot of the focus has been on up dating the port infrastructure to miti gate the effects of climate change, said DEM spokesperson Michael Healey. This includes increasing the height of bulkheads and docks to keep ahead of rising sea levels.

Daniel Costa, DEM’s port manager, calls the bulkheads “the most critical and most expensive component” of Galilee’s infrastructure.

“The biggest improvement has been replacing the bulkheads,” Costa said. “The replacement … has led to a lot of business security with the surrounding leaseholders conducting business in the port.”

So far, construction company Narragansett Dock Works Inc. has dismantled and reconstructed three docks and replaced about 500 feet of bulkhead, says Matthew Melchiori, Narragansett Dock Works president who is also supervising the project.

One dock and about 600 feet of bulk head are left to be fixed.

Galilee port overhaul drawing new business

BY CLAUDIA CHIAPPA | Chiappa@PBN.com

Williams knew the moment he visited the Port of Galilee that this was a “lo gistically perfect” location for his crab business.

The owner of the New Bedford-based Atlantic Red Crab Co. had always looked at Rhode Island as a strategic place for his fishing business, but suddenly the idea of owning a location at the Narragansett port seemed attainable. And Rhode Island’s multimillion-dollar investment into modernizing the port made the prospect even more attractive.

“It isn’t an inexpensive business,” Williams said. “I want to make sure that I’m investing my finances and resources in the right area, that they’re secure in the long term.”

Now Williams is in the process of renovating the waterfront commer cial property at 270 Great Island Road. The result will include a modern, 9,000-square-foot, two-story building, a 4,000-square-foot dock and a 130-foot pier.

The Port of Galilee is one of the four state-managed fishing ports and one of the largest ports on the East Coast. The National Marine Fisheries Service ranked it the fourth-highest-value fish ing port on the East Coast and 18th in

the U.S.

It supports 200 commercial fishermen and businesses, and it is a vital part of Rhode Island’s commercial fishing industry, which supports more than 4,000 jobs across all sectors and provides almost $420 million in economic impact statewide, according to a 2017 University of Rhode Island study.

But until a few years ago, much of the Port of Galilee was in disuse.

“Basically, the entire infrastructure was crumbling,” said Meghan Lapp, a fisheries liaison at Seafreeze Shoreside Inc., a frozen seafood and ice company at the port.

Lapp witnessed firsthand the neglect that the port experienced for years. Un stable pilings, rotted bulkheads, widen ing sinkholes, crumbling infrastructure – it was becoming not only a concern for the success of the business but a public safety hazard.

But in the last few years, the R.I. Department of Environmental Manage ment has invested millions of dollars into renovating and updating the port’s infrastructure.

DEM currently has four large-scale projects underway at the port with a combined cost of $15 million. This

ON COURSE: Daniel Costa, Port of Galilee manager for the R.I. Department of Environmen tal Manage ment, examines the improve ments being made along the commercial waterfront at the port.

PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO

“DEM is making a huge investment in the Port of Galilee,” Melchiori said. “I’ve owned my business for 27 years, and this is the first time we’ve seen this kind of money dumped into the port. It’s well overdue.”

Future improvements will be funded by a $46 million allocation from federal American Rescue Plan Act money that was included in the fiscal 2023 state budget for the up grades in the infrastructure at the Port of Galilee.

The renovations underway have already encouraged businesses to invest more money into their opera tions, reassured that the port will stay standing for years to come.

Seafreeze Shoreside, which em ploys about 40 people, says it has recently invested millions of dollars into expanding at the port, including improving its freezer capacity, adding a new vessel and updating its infra structure.

“Because DEM has been willing to invest in that infrastructure, it gives us confidence that the state is support ive of our industry in the long term,” Lapp said. “Because we have the con fidence they will maintain the infra structure, we have the confidence to invest in our business.”

Williams, too, says his investment at the port was largely motivated by the ongoing updates.

“Up and down all of the coast it seems like we aren’t keeping up with the progression and so docks aren’t being maintained and rebuilt in a timely basis,” Williams said. “That’s why it was very attracting when we realized the state shared the vision to improve it.”

Williams says more businesses are likely to follow his lead.

“This is the first fishing communi ty in the Eastern Seaboard that’s get ting this upgrade and it will demon strate it’s very well spent because the strongest players in the industry will gravitate towards there,” he said. n

Long-awaited bike bridges will use modular system

BY JACQUELYN VOGHEL | Voghel@PBN.com

AFTER NEARLY THREE YEARS of uncertainty, frustration and sometimes outright pessimism for East Bay Bike Path users and alternative transportation advocates, the tentative replacement of the trail’s two dilapidated river bridges in Bar rington received a long-awaited commitment in September.

In a gathering at Police Cove Park in Barrington on Sept. 26, state and local officials announced the state’s plan to replace the two rail trail bridges spanning the Palmer and Warren rivers, a project with an esti mated price tag of $24 million.

The announcement was long over due for the bike path’s proponents.

“We’re delighted,” said Kathleen Gannon, chairperson of the Rhode Is land Bike Coalition. “It’s an important route for cyclists for a lot of reasons.”

While a win for cyclists, the cel ebratory atmosphere underscores a yearslong period where some feared the bridges would never see new life, as R.I. Department of Transportation officials said the state did not have sufficient funding to guarantee the replacement.

A $48.5 million federal allocation awarded to Rhode Island for trans portation infrastructure improve ments in August pushed the bridge replacement project from hope to reality, according to RIDOT spokes person Charles St. Martin III.

The project had also gained some momentum in March, receiving $5 million from a $229 million federal allocation to Rhode Island. And the state previously set aside another $10 million for the project, but at the time made no promises that the replace ment project would move forward.

Following the latest infusion of federal dollars, the bike paths will return with a modern, more environ mentally friendly structure, RIDOT says.

The design and engineering processes, which Aetna Bridge Co. in Warwick and Massachusetts-based Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc. will oversee, will produce two bridges structurally distinct from the origi nal crossings. The old bridges were built as part of the Providence, Warren and Bristol Railroad in the 1880s, and converted to accommodate bikeway users in the 1980s.

The design-build team will use prefabricated, modular truss bridges, meaning that sections of the bridge will be built off-site and then trans ported to the bike path for final installation.

With this method, bridges “are quicker to install and have less impact on the environment,” as this lightweight design requires smaller foundational elements and piers,” RIDOT says on the project webpage. “They also are easier structures to maintain, with a very long design life.”

The design will use two piers in the river, compared with the “hun dreds of wood pilings that support the old bridges,” the department continues.

The project will not cause any other changes to the surrounding sec tions of the East Bay Bike Path, St. Martin said.

Aetna Bridge Co. did not respond to an interview request, and VHB Managing Director Justin Dufresne said the company cannot comment “as a consultant of RIDOT.”

In 2005, Aetna Bridge Co. replaced the roadway bridge over the Palmer River between Barrington and War ren, which runs parallel to the bike path.

Since the bridge closures, many say temporary detours have been less than ideal: initially, a crude detour directed cyclists to twice cross the busy Route 114 and walk their bikes over the sidewalk spanning each bridge.

This detour, which was widely crit icized as dangerous and cumbersome, remained in effect until December

Putnam Municipal Complex & Library

Putnam,

East

‘It’s an important route for cyclists for a lot of reasons.’

KATHLEEN GANNON, Rhode Island Bike Coalition chairperson

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19 2021, when RIDOT opened two boardwalk-style pathways that widened the existing sidewalks on the north side of the road bridges.

But even with $2 million dedicated to the tempo rary, protected bikeways, the state did not commit to replacing the original bike bath bridges.

While an improvement over the original detour, Gannon will be glad to see the boardwalk-style bikeway over the road bridges phased out.

For one thing, the detour is unsightly, Gannon says, and “it’s really not well-constructed.”

While less dangerous than the initial detour, she says, cyclists still must navigate around sharp corners and telephone poles when entering and exiting the temporary detours.

“Someone wrapped the poles in padding,” Gannon said. “You know you have a bad infra structure design when you need to pad them, and they’re just not up to any appropriate standard for riding.”

And the detours have a wider impact than in conveniencing recreational cyclists, Gannon says.

“We all are aware of the recreational use of the East Bay Bike Path, and that will continue to be an important reason people cycle there,” she said. “But I often think people overlook how important that is as a commuting route … from city to city and town to town, but also within towns.”

In a statement, RIDOT Director Peter Alviti Jr. said the department will use the recently an nounced federal funding “to first backfill the gap in the actual cost of the East Bay Bike Path bridges with $9 million so we can rebuild both bridges, and the remainder we will use for pavement preserva tion, a priority of Governor [Daniel J.] McKee.”

The state expects the design and permitting process to conclude by next spring and plans to release further details on the bridge design at that point. The project has a tentative completion date of 2025. n

TEMPORARY FIX: Kathleen Gannon, left, board chair of the Rhode Island Bike Coalition, rides across a tem porary, boardwalk-style bridge as part of a detour along the East Bay Bike Path going over the Barrington River in Barrington with coalition members Judy Menton, center, and Chris Menton. The old bridge seen in the background is one of two along the bike path that will be replaced following an allocation of federal money for transportation infrastructure improvements awarded to the state in August.

PBN PHOTO/KATE WHITNEY LUCEY

R.I.02903

2021:

4

Lerner/Ladds + BartelsInc. 2 | llbarch.com

NealBijlani,JonathanTaylor,EnnoFritsch,Brian Valentine andSuzanneDiSalvo, principals;Christian Ladds,R. DraytonFair andKathleenBartels, senior principals

Saccoccio & Associates ArchitectsInc. | sa-architects.com MarkSaccoccio andSteveGuglielmo, principals

Symmes, Maini & McKee Associates Inc. 3 | smma.com

161 Exchange St. Pawtucket, R.I.02860 (401)421-7715

1085 Park Ave. Cranston, R.I.02910 (401)942-7970

9

Community Land

CLOSER LOOK

by total staff:

DBVW Architects

staff: 34

Vision 3 Architects

staff: 29

LLC Architects

Community Preparatory School Arts & Athletic Center, Providence; Earth, Environment and Planetary Sciences Laboratories, Brown University, Providence; Ranger Hall Renovation, University of Rhode Island, South Kingstown; The Creative Class Residences, Fall River

Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport restroom interior redesign; Warwick School Department multiple school projects

2021:

Ara Krafian, CEO; John Scott, Jennifer Howe and Nick Koulbanis, principals

Brewster Thornton Group ArchitectsLLP

managing partner;Nathaniel GinsburgandPatrickConnors, partners

Cordtsen Design ArchitectureInc. | cordtsendesign.com SpencerMcCombe

KITE ArchitectsInc. | kitearchitects.com AlbertGarcia andChristineWest, principals

275 Promenade St., Suite 275 Providence, R.I.02908 (401)421-0447

317 Iron Horse Way, Suite 202 Providence, R.I.02908 (401)861-1600

42 West Main Road Middletown, R.I.02842 (401)619-4689

1 Central St. Providence, R.I.02907 (401)272-0240

400

Ave.

R.I.02914 (401)331-9200

Providence College Shanley Hall; NAVFAC Newport Base Various; Brown University lab renovations

Rhode Island College Clarke Science Building, Providence; Goddard Park master plan, Warwick

Newport National Golf clubhouse; International Tennis Hall of Fame, Canfield House TeamFAME, Newport; Baileys Beach Newport clubhouse; Roger Williams University wrestling and dance facility, Bristol

Street Apartments, Providence; Brown University LGBTQ Center, Providence; Culinary Hub of Providence, Genesis Center, Providence

R.I. State Police Portsmouth Barracks renovation; North Kingstown School Department

projects; West Warwick School Department

projects

staff: 27

LIST RESEARCHED BY James Bessette

NEED A COPY?

purchase a copy of this list, call (401) 273-2201 or visit PBN.com/lists for more information.

UPCOMING LISTS

Nov. 11: Accounting Firms, Executive Compensation in Public Companies, Wealth Managers; Nov. 25: Familyowned Businesses, Rhode Island Distilleries, Breweries & Vineyards, Women-run Businesses

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= Not listed last year.

FOOTNOTES

Also known as Vision 3 Architects.

Also known as LLB Architects.

known as SMMA.

known as Signal Works.

Schools adding online MBAs as demand grows

BY JACQUELYN VOGHEL | Voghel@PBN.com

before the pandemic, Crystal Raviele, then the manager of ancillary services at Coastal Medical Inc. health practices, knew she was interested in a Master of Business Administra tion degree, and the career development she believed would come along with it.

What held her back was the time com mitment required to not only take the needed courses but to travel and partici pate in on-campus classes.

“I finished my undergrad in 2002, and I hadn’t done any [additional degrees] since,” Raviele said. “I knew I wanted to do a master’s degree, but I kept putting it off. … I knew that physically having to go to a location and doing it part time would take a while, and with my job, it was one of those things where I was never going to get out of work, to class and home.”

So, she looked to an option that wouldn’t require so much moving around throughout the day: an online MBA pro gram offered by Bryant University. As of May, Raviele, now the director of diagnos tics at Boston-based health tech company Medically Home, has the degree she

wanted with minimal visits to campus.

This pathway has become increasingly popular recently. According to a study released by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, students enrolled in online MBA programs out numbered those in traditional, in-person programs during the 2020-2021 academic year, by a margin of around 1,300 students.

More universities have begun offering online MBA programs. Between 2021 and 2022, the number of accredited business schools offering online MBA programs surged by 85%, according to AACSB, after already growing 54% from 2012-2017.

In addition to Byrant, Johnson & Wales University, Salve Regina University and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth now offer the online MBA degree among Rhode Island and southeastern Massachu setts institutions.

Madan Annavarjula, dean of the College of Business and a professor of internation al business at Bryant, said the university launched its online MBA program in 2018 for students who are established business professionals looking to take their careers to the next level but may lack the time for

traditional pathways due to other life commitments.

“We feel like we have the technol ogy to meet them where they are,” Annavarjula said.

The online program also runs a lower cost, at $2,196 per course, compared with $3,420 per course for in-person MBAs.

The online MBA program was well positioned to meet students’ needs when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Annavarjula said, though the path way hasn’t experienced a surge in growth since that time. New student enrollment was at its highest in the program’s first two years, he noted, following aggressive marketing from the university, and has since held steady, with 71 students in the pro gram this year.

Students can elect to complete the program in one to three years, de pending on their other obligations.

The online MBA program at John son & Wales University, launched in 2015, hit its peak in student enroll ment during the pandemic, said Evan Grenier, director of admissions at JWU. Grenier did not provide enroll ment figures but said that in fall 2020, enrollment grew by about 20% year over year for a single term.

Unlike Bryant, which launched its program three years later than JWU, the online program attracted fewer applicants in its early days.

“We really did start from the ground up,” Grenier said. “Thinking back to 2014, 2015, it was literally tens of students, even single digits in some of our individual specializations, and it’s grown quite a bit.”

Some students may have concerns that employers won’t value an online MBA to the same degree as an MBA earned in person. That’s not without reason. In a 2021 report by the Gradu ate Management Admission Council, only 34% of recruiters said they value online and in-person MBA programs equally.

And in that report, 69% of MBA candidates surveyed were skeptical that they would have the same career opportunities as their in-person coun terparts.

Annavarjula said he hasn’t noticed these concerns among companies the university works with, adding that some companies appreciate the added flexibility that online MBA programs give students as they continue work ing while taking classes.

“At this point in time, we don’t [think online versus in person] mat ters a whole lot,” Annavarjula said. “I have personally attended and pre sented the online opportunity to Fidel ity [Investments Inc.], to CVS [Health Corp.] and so forth, and we have had a very steady registration from those organizations. We don’t see there’s a difference.”

And Raviele left the program confi dent it would help her career moving forward.

“It definitely helped me profes sionally,” she said. “I got hired into the position I’m in now right before I graduated, but I think the program gives you a really nice knowledge base and confidence in your approach to problem-solving.” n

POPULAR PATH: Crystal Raviele, a health care management professional, graduated from Bryant Univer sity’s online MBA program in May.

PBN PHOTO/ ELIZABETH GRAHAM

‘We feel like we have the technology to meet them where they are.’

MADAN ANNAVARJULA, Bryant University College of Business dean and professor of international business

Tuition program puts new spin on incentive

BY NANCY LAVIN | Lavin@PBN.com

CECILIA GUANTE DIDN’T PLAN on stopping her schooling after she finished her associate degree.

But she ran out of money and had to shelve her dream to earn a bachelor’s degree in engineering.

“My loans were getting too big, and I don’t like owing money,” Guante said.

Fast forward six years and the Cranston resident is excitedly prepar ing to return to the classroom, having enrolled at the Community College of Rhode Island for the spring. She still doesn’t have enough money to pay for it herself, but she won’t have to.

Her employer, Amazon.com Inc., will foot the tuition as part of its Career Choice program, which named CCRI as a partnering educational institution in August. Under the agreement, the online retail giant will cover up to $5,200 of annual tuition costs for its full-time workers who want to earn new degrees or certifi cates (a smaller amount is available for part-time Amazon workers).

Amazon is hardly the first employ er to incentivize workers to go back to school. But what makes this program different from nearly all of its com

petitors is that Amazon pays the costs upfront, not the tuition reimburse ment that other companies may offer, according to Amy Kacerik, CCRI’s dean of enrollment management.

This was the key selling point for Guante, who works in Amazon’s

Fall River fulfillment center. Even working two jobs, both at Amazon and Whole Foods Market IP Inc. – an Amazon subsidiary – store in Rhode Island, she didn’t have enough sav ings to cover the tuition, plus the cost of books and other expenses.

Indeed, many of the hourly wage workers who could benefit the most from higher education don’t have the money to pay out of pocket, even with the potential for reimbursement, says Shannon Gilkey, the R.I. postsecond ary commissioner.

“To offer that money upfront is re ally a proactive way for employers to

‘To offer that money upfront is really a proactive way for employers to break down that [tuition] barrier.’

break down that barrier,” Gilkey said.

The commissioner is hopeful that Amazon’s leadership will spur other Rhode Island companies to follow suit with upfront, tuition payment pro grams. Although smaller businesses don’t have the same deep pockets as Amazon, the per-person cost to em ployers could be “pretty reasonable” after federal financial aid is applied, Gilkey says.

In Gilkey’s eyes, employers have a key role to play in helping meet the state benchmark of having 70% of workers with a postsecondary degree or equivalent credentials by 2030, up from the existing 53%.

But the Amazon-CCRI program has gotten off to a slow start. Guante is one of a small number of Amazon workers signed up to start taking classes at CCRI through the program, though the college has fielded more than 50 inquiries from potential students since the partnership was announced, Kacerik said.

What was now a trickle could be come a flood after a new, $290 million Amazon warehouse opens in John ston next year.

Amazon’s Johnston project had little bearing on its decision to part

SHANNON GILKEY, R.I. postsecondary commissioner

ner with CCRI, according to company spokeswoman Caitlin McLaughlin. But the 1,500 new jobs the warehouse will bring to the Ocean State will more than double the company’s Rhode Island workforce, which stood at 1,000 people as of the fourth quarter of 2021, McLaughlin said.

While new to Rhode Island, Amazon’s Career Choice program was launched in 2012, with more than 80,000 workers taking classes at 250 educational institutions worldwide, according to McLaughlin. The company also expanded the program in January, with a $1.2 billion investment over the next three years that includes up front tuition costs – previously it was a reimbursement model – new industry certifications, English language proficiency courses and high school completion options for some 750,000 workers.

The investment could help Amazon by preparing its workers for more technical jobs, but Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has also made it clear that he doesn’t mind losing workers to new jobs either. The program touts the opportunity for workers to pursue new careers that offer “in-demand jobs” such as transportation, information technology, health care and mechanical trades.

At Fall River-based Bristol Community College, which joined Amazon’s Career Choice program in 2020, health care and IT were the most popular degrees among Amazon students, according to spokesman Kevin Spir let. However, just 15 Amazon workers had enrolled at Bristol since the partnership began, seven of whom have dropped out ahead of finishing a degree or certificate, Spirlet said.

He chalks up the low enrollment to the COVID-19 pandemic and expects the switch from reimbursement to upfront tuition coverage by Amazon will bring more workers to the college.

Guante wants to stay at Amazon – she liked it enough to justify the 30-minute drive from Cranston to Fall River. She hopes a new degree in cybersecurity or some thing computer-related will help her get a better, higherpaying position with the company.

“As soon as I found out I qualified, I was really excit ed,” she said. “I am thinking about my future.” n

PRIME OPPORTUNITY: Amy Kacerik, dean of enrollment management at the Community College of Rhode Island, says few Amazon.com Inc. employees have enrolled using the tuition program called Career Choice, but that may change when the Amazon warehouse opens in Johnston next year, which will employ 1,500 people.

PBN PHOTO/ELIZABETH GRAHAM

Isenberg School of Management Graduate Programs Anne P.Massey,dean

University of Hartford | hartford.edu/unotes Barney School of Business Stephen M.Mulready,dean

121 Presidents Drive Amherst, Mass.01003 (413) 545-5608

200 Bloomfield Ave. West Hartford, Conn.06117 (860) 768-4444

AACSB 1,588 582 $125,000

AACSB; AACSB International; NECHE

37 Online MBA $925/credit

RESEARCHED BY James Bessette

purchase a copy of

call (401) 273-2201 or visit PBN.com/lists for more information.

LISTS

Nov. 11: Accounting Firms, Executive Compensation in Public Companies, Wealth Managers; Nov. 25: Familyowned Businesses, Rhode Island Distilleries, Breweries & Vineyards, Women-run Businesses

TO JOIN?

826

$80,000 NA 34 $814 per credit

in PBN’s

to make additions or corrections, call (401) 680-4838 or write to Research@PBN.com.

= Not listed last year.

R.I.02903

598-1000

University

admissions.bentley.edu/graduate McCallum Graduate School of

SanjayPutrevu,dean of business

mitsloan.mit.edu

Forest St. Waltham, Mass.02452 (781) 891-2108

Institute of Technology

School of Management

University

Business

AmyZeng,dean

Memorial Drive Cambridge, Mass.02142 (617) 258-5434

Ashburton

International; NEASC 484 527 $68,126 9-to-1

$65,160 (Total MBA tuition based on 12-course maximum); $5,430 per 3-credit course

NEASC

$80,400

$80,834

AACSB International;

time (24 credits/ year) in state,

BANKING

BankNewport is pleased to announce that Cody Wims has been named Vice President, Digital Marketing Manager. Wims will lead BankNewport’s Digital Marketing team, managing the campaign development, measurement and marketing technologies that support BankNewport’s business objectives. Wims will work with key stakeholders across BankNewport’s major lines of business to provide reporting aligned to their objectives and goals, and coordinates within the Digital Marketing Team. A graduate of the University of Rhode Island, Wims resides in Seekonk, Mass.

BANKING

BankNewport is pleased to announce that Diogo Ventura has been named Vice President, Premier Banking Officer. Ventura brings 17 years of banking and business development experience to his new position, in which he will be responsible for acquiring top customer prospects within the bank’s existing and emerging markets, focusing on high touch relationship banking and customer service. Prior to his new role, was a Business Development Officer with BankNewport. Before joining BankNewport, Ventura served as a Relationship Banking Officer with Admirals Bank. He is a resident of Warren, Rhode Island.

BANKING

BankNewport is pleased to announce that Dawn Cochran has been promoted to vice president, deposit operations. She will be responsible for managing the daily operations of cash management services, account verification, electronic disputes and overall branch support, in addition to her role as ACH coordinator. Prior to her new position, Cochran was assistant vice president, deposit servicing manager. Cochran is a member of the Standing Rules Group of the New England Automated Clearing House Association (NEACH) and is a Nacha Accredited ACH Professional. She resides in Newport, Rhode Island.

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

BANKING

BankNewport is pleased to announce that Siobhan Kits van Heyningen has joined OceanPoint Marine Lending, a subsidiary of BankNewport, as vice president, director of strategic projects. She will be responsible for defining, organizing, and planning various strategic initiatives within the marine lending division. Prior to joining BankNewport, Kits van Heyningen was a senior project manager in the airtime services division of KVH Industries. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She resides in Newport.

BANKING

BankNewport is pleased to announce that Brian Danusis has been named Vice President, Commercial Credit Underwriting Manager. Brian brings 20 years of commercial banking experience. He will manage a team of credit underwriters originating new commercial real estate and commercial and industrial relationships. He will work as a liaison between the lending and credit teams, providing guidance on loan structure, risk rating and commercial loan policy. Prior to joining BankNewport, Brian worked at Rockland Trust, Bank of America and Citizens Bank. Brian is a resident of Coventry, Rhode Island.

HEALTH CARE

Dr. Nicholas Nikolopoulos, DO, has joined PACE-RI as Chief Medical Officer. A talented physician, business executive, and leader, Dr. Nikolopoulos

brings more than a decade of experience to PACE-RI during a time of rapid organizational growth. In the past year, the non-profit organization has opened a new center and headquarters in East Providence and increased its census by 17 percent. Dr. Nikolopoulos was previously with Oak Street Health. He graduated from the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed his residency at Kent Hospital. He has served on the board of the Rhode Island Society of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons.

ENGINEERING

The Academy of Coastal, Ocean, Port & Navigation Engineers (ACOPNE) has certified GZA GeoEnvironmental Senior Engineer Dino D. Fiscaletti as a Diplomate in Port Engineering. Dino is based in GZA’s Providence offices. GZA President and CEO Patrick Sheehan said: “ACOPNE’s prestigious Diplomate in Port Engineering is the highest postlicense certification in the field and recognizes Dino’s advanced expertise and deep, specialized knowledge of how to develop innovative solutions to the many complex challenges associated with port engineering.”

BANKING

BankNewport is pleased to announce that David J. Costa has been named Vice President and Manager of Specialized Lending and Portfolio Management. Costa brings more than 30 years of banking and commercial lending experience, most recently serving as Vice President and Portfolio Relationship Manager in the Commercial Lending Group for BankNewport. Costa will manage BankNewport’s Specialized Lending Programs and a team of Portfolio Relationship Management Professionals. Costa currently resides in Bristol, Rhode Island.

BANKING

Westerly Community Credit Union (WCCU) is pleased to announce that Shannon Melchione has joined their team as Business Development Officer. Her responsibilities include promoting small business development and lending needs, as well as fostering relationships with lenders, small businesses, economic development professionals, and other partners. She will be serving all of Rhode Island and Eastern Connecticut. Shannon has over 25 years of experience in the mortgage banking industry and is looking forward to helping small businesses. She lived in Newport for over 40 years before moving to West Greenwich, Rhode Island.

BANKNG

BankNewport is pleased to announce that Marc Scanapieco has been named Vice President, Business and Commercial Lending Officer, responsible for business development, commercial loan production, cross sales origination, and cross team collaboration throughout Rhode Island. He joins BankNewport from Liberty Bank where he was Vice President, Business Banking Officer. Scanapieco holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of Rhode Island. A native of Mohegan Lake, NY, he currently resides in Westerly, Rhode Island.

BANKING

BankNewport is pleased to announce that Susan Viveiros has been named senior vice president, chief information security officer. She will be responsible for all aspects of information/cyber security, vendor management, business continuity planning and disaster recovery. Viveiros returns to BankNewport after serving as the director of information security at Ocean Spray. Viveiros is a certified chief information security officer, information security manager, and information system auditor. She resides in Westport, Mass.

BANKING

BankNewport is pleased to announce that Colleen Gouveia Moulton has been named senior vice president and director of commercial banking. She will work with BankNewport’s commercial lenders, branch managers, residential mortgage originators, and OceanPoint Insurance producers in the Bank’s market areas to assist them in achieving business development goals. Moulton presently serves on several local boards and committees, including the executive board of the University of Rhode Island Foundation & Alumni Engagement (URIFAE). She is also the chair of the Women in Banking Committee for the Rhode Island Bankers Association. She currently resides in West Kingston, Rhode Island

URI professors get NASA grant

DAWN CARDACE and Soni Pradhanang, associate professors of geosciences at the University of Rhode Island, and Serena Moseman-Valtierra, a URI associate professor of biological sciences, were recently awarded a $735,000 grant by the NASA Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research to study methane gas emissions at a northern California site that has a rock system comparable to known sites on Mars. The researchers hope to broaden the scientific understanding of methane emissions in ultramafic rock systems. The work could help answer whether there was, or is, microbial life on Mars.

In studying methane in rocks, what do you hope to find out about the gases?

READY TO ROCK: Three University of Rhode Island associate professors were awarded a $735,000 grant by the NASA Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research to study methane gas emissions. They are, from left, Soni Pradhanang, Dawn Cardace and Serena Moseman-Valtierra.

CARDACE: Earth’s bedrock produces gases through the interactions of deep, dark microbial life, per colating groundwaters and the chemical inventory of the minerals in the rocks. The very iron- and magnesium-rich rocks that we will study produce methane and hydrogen –both flammable, both energy resources for microbes. We need to quantify how much and at what rate these gases are produced, along with whether the emissions relate to environmental conditions and groundwater chemistry so they can be modeled and predicted in similar extraterres trial landscapes.

What will the $735,000 grant support for this project?

MOSEMAN-VALTIERRA: Just over half of the funds will go to much-needed infrastructure support at the University of Rhode Island. Our major equipment purchase is a cuttingedge tool developed by LI-COR: a backpack-carried Meth ane Survey Soil Flux kit that will enable our field work to go forward and generate collaborative research opportuni ties with scientific groups in Rhode Island. The grant will also fund graduate and undergraduate scientist skill build ing to support the next generation of environmental and earth scientists, along with helping in other areas.

What makes the rock system in California so unique and of interest to researchers?

PRADHANANG: A key quality of the northern California area is that there are surficial exposures of bedrock that were originally deep underground – native to Earth’s man tle, far beneath our planetary crust. Rather than having to drill great depths, our field work will be conducted at the University of California’s McLaughlin Natural Reserve, a protected research and education space where we can access the rocks at the surface. There is over 150 million years of history of collision and compression along tecton ic plates converging offshore in the Pacific Northwest, and erosion has uncovered mantle-type rocks for our study.

What do you hope to learn in the first year of this endeavor?

CARDACE: We are currently building our field and analyti cal team, tuning our supporting equipment and training students so we can hit the ground running as soon as the LI-COR kit arrives. We will test the system at local meth ane-generating locations, including salt marshes, ground water wells and landfills, and grow our understanding of methane dynamics. The methane flux data from various fields could be used not only to explore life on Mars but also to evaluate rock, salt marshes and groundwater in the context of carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas dynamics. n

COURTESY

THERE’S AN OLD STORY about a kid shooting arrows into his backyard fence. After shooting an arrow, he would run over to the fence and draw a target around it.

Suddenly one of the boy’s friends shows up and says: “That’s no way to have target practice! You are sup posed to draw the target and then shoot at it.”

The boy responds, “I know that, but if you do it my way, you never miss!”

Sadly, many people approach life like this fanciful archer. They cheat or are afraid to set goals for fear of failure.

Goals give us a sense of purpose and help identify what we want.

“People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going,” said Earl Nightingale, one of the motiva tional authors and radio personalities I followed when starting my business career.

Setting goals is an important prerequisite for success. But the way you set your goals and pursue them can be determined by many factors. One of them, according to a study by Leadership IQ, may be your gender.

The survey, in which 2,506 women and 2,184 men participated, showed

that women are more emotionally connected to their goals than men. That makes them more likely to hang on when the going gets tough.

The study also found that men vi sualize their goals better than women. This gives them greater direction and focus.

Women are more likely to procras tinate, the study found. They tend to feel less urgency about accomplishing their goals, which can undermine their efforts.

Women tend to set more-difficult goals. Men are less likely to challenge themselves and step out of their com fort zones, all according to the study.

Each individual is unique when it comes to setting and achieving goals, but we can all stand to check our blind spots from time to time.

Bottom line: It’s difficult to ad vance in your career unless you’re working toward goals. Setting goals that will inspire and motivate you is crucial. Aim for goals that are:

n Quantifiable – You should be able to measure success in objective terms so everyone can see the value of your efforts.

n Challenging – If goals are too easy, chances are your objective won’t have significant impact on your organization.

n Realistic – Although challenge is important, pursuing an impossible dream will result only in a moralecrushing letdown.

n Flexible – Don’t back yourself into a corner. Although you don’t want to adjust your goals to suit your results, be willing to modify your am bitions if circumstances propel your original objective out of reach.

In his book “The Spirit of St. Louis,” the famed aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh recalled address ing a group of naval officers on the subject of long-distance aerial naviga tion. This was only a few weeks prior to him being the first person to fly solo over the Atlantic Ocean to Paris

from New York.

“What kind of charts do you intend to use?” one officer asked him.

“The same as you carry on ships at sea,” Lindbergh answered.

“Suppose you strike a wind change in the night, and it drifts you far off course,” said a second skeptic.

“A navigating error wouldn’t be too serious,” Lindbergh said. “This flight is not like shooting for an is land. I can’t very well miss the entire European continent.”

Lindbergh got a good laugh at that line. But there is a moral here for anyone preparing for a difficult and risky assignment. You don’t want to aim for too small a target. That is be cause sudden market or technological change can happen at any time, and you must be prepared for it. But most of all, it is vitally important to have a carefully prepared and flexible flight plan to guide you as you begin.

Mackay’s Moral: Winners make goals; losers make excuses! n

Harvey Mackay is the author of the New York Times bestseller “Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive.” He can be reached through his website, www.harveymackay.com. n

(Editor’s note: This is the third installment of a monthly column on the growing number of cyberthreats facing businesses of all sizes and what they can do about it. This column was first published on PBN.com on Oct. 18.)

WHEN IT COMES TO cybersecurity incidents and data breaches, we see the headlines when big corporations are hit. But what we don’t see are the thousands of breaches that happen every year to smaller organizations.

Last year alone, data breaches af fected 294 million individuals.

As business leaders and their legal counsel attempt to navigate data pri vacy laws and regulatory mandates, regulatory bodies continue to enact new and refined privacy and data security requirements.

Across these statutes and direc tives is the increased use of terms such as reasonable, appropriate, ac ceptable and practical when it comes to the security measures. “Reason able” is peppered throughout the Massachusetts privacy law and is a staple in the Rhode Island Identity

if a business is at risk of civil litiga tion and liable based on perceived negligence?

Luckily, standards and best prac tices are being shared by the cyber security industry and the federal government that help define those reasonable expectations. Here are some ways Rhode Island businesses can begin to mature their cybersecu rity programs and effectively manage the risk, ultimately helping them meet the “reasonableness “standard.

First and foremost, cybersecurity should be prioritized at the highest levels of leadership. Risk and busi ness resilience should be a staple agenda item for leaders. Cybersecu rity is a shared responsibility across an entire company.

Modern cybersecurity programs must be based on industry standards, best practices and frameworks. The National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Frame work is a gold standard that can help organizations build comprehensive

and sustainable programs that focus on people, processes, technology, policies, supply chain risk and more.

Organizations need to have a writ ten information security program – or a WISP – that outlines policies and guidelines to protect the confidential ity and security of personal informa tion. It’s already a regulation for all organizations that handle the person al information of any Massachusetts resident. A Rhode Island business was recently penalized $230,000 under a settlement reached with the Mass. Of fice of the Attorney General for lack ing a WISP. No matter what type of personal or sensitive data, every busi ness should have a well-documented program that outlines procedural, physical and technical safeguards for a customer’s private data.

Businesses must have continuous visibility into their cyber risk. Per forming regular, formal assessments is a core component of a company’s resilience. These continuous ac tivities start by assessing the cur

rent risks, then helping businesses identify, prioritize and find ways to remediate those risks.

With the right culture, program, best practices and risk assessment practices, a business can realize the benefits of and take full advantage of modern technologies and cybersecu rity innovation. Technologies alone, without these supporting strategies, will fail a business.

While some organizations and executives will continue to drag their feet and steer clear of cybersecurity conversations, the risks from cyber attacks grow exponentially daily. With pressures from privacy laws and regulatory oversight, the dam ages from disciplinary actions or lawsuits will become enormous.

Confronted with these massive amounts of potential cybersecurity liabilities, organizations that are pro active will mature. Those that aren’t will risk going out of business.

Next month: “You can still get burned through the clouds.” n

Jason Albuquerque is chief operating officer of Pawtucketbased Envision Technology Advisors LLC. You can reach him through www.envisionsuccess.net.

WITH SO MUCH MOVEMENT in the job market lately, efforts to enforce noncompete agreements have dra matically increased. It is important for employers to make sure that their documents are enforceable and that they comply with current laws and best practices.

Noncompetes exist to protect an employer’s customer relationships, confidential information and trade secrets. A company’s confidential or proprietary information and trade secrets may include intellectual prop erty such as inventions and formulas, as well as the company’s business plans, pricing information and non public customer list.

Having an employee sign a non compete is one thing; enforcing the restriction is quite another. If the employer cannot establish that it has a legitimate business interest that requires protection, then the agree ment is not likely to be enforced. Courts will scrutinize an employer’s claimed interest to ensure that it is not merely an attempt to keep its former employee from working for a competitor.

The restrictive covenant also has to be reasonable in scope, and what

The art of a noncompete

is considered reasonable varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The current trend is for states to limit or even prohibit noncompetes in terms of time, types of employees that can be restricted, certain professions or whether an employee is terminated or quits.

The past few years have seen numerous attempts at limiting or banning noncompetes in many states – and even at the federal level, where a bill limiting noncompetes was introduced in 2021 but did not pass Congress. For example, in Rhode Is land and Maine, noncompetes cannot be enforced against hourly employees and others, including students, those 18 and under, those earning less than 250% of the federal poverty level, and nonexempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Massachusetts has limited noncompetes in many respects, including a maximum time restriction of one year and requiring

payment to the former employee dur ing the restricted period. California is so far the only state to completely ban noncompetes.

The more specialized an employ ee’s role, the more likely it is that a noncompete will hold up if the em ployee leaves to work for a competi tor. Higher-level, more-specialized employees typically have access to sensitive or confidential informa tion, or have customer relationships, whereas an administrative assistant, for example, cannot hurt the employ er by going to work for a competitor because their skills are interchange able from one employer to the next. While they may have access to con fidential information about custom ers, they typically cannot use that information in a competitive fashion.

So employers should not automati cally give the same type of noncom pete to every employee because that waters down the employer’s argu

The restrictive covenant also has to be reasonable in scope.

ment that the agreement is neces sary and makes it less likely to be enforced.

Because of the tight labor market, employees are in a much stronger bargaining position now than a few years ago. Most tend not to want to work for an organization that puts them under an extremely restrictive noncompete agreement. Employees are likely these days to negotiate the terms of a noncompete before they accept a position.

When properly executed, reason able in scope and put in place to sup port a legitimate business interest, noncompetes can be effective tools for protecting company interests and retaining talent. In this tight labor market, flexibility, customization and ensuring that the document is legally enforceable can provide an employer with some comfort when it lands its next big hire. n

Joshua A. Hawks-Ladds is co-chair of the labor, employment law and employee benefits department at the law firm Pullman & Comley LLC. He leads the firm’s South Kingstown office.

Voters to decide on school projects, marijuana shops Businesses can do more for schools

READY TO GROW:

Roger Williams Park Zoo Executive Director Stacey Johnson hopes voters approve a bond request that includes $12 million for a new education center and events pavilion at the zoo.

FILE PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO

Voters on Nov. 8 will decide whether to strengthen the University of Rhode Island’s role in growing a regional oceanbased economy, continue the public school building boom and boost the state’s so-called green economy.

A total of $400 million in state borrow ing would be split between the three state wide ballot questions. If recent history is a guide, all three are likely to win approval.

As this week’s cover story reports, the URI proposal is $100 million to modernize

expand its Narragansett Bay Campus, including a new building and improved lab and research facilities. It follows 2018 approval by voters of $45 million for a first phase of bay campus improvements.

The request for $250 million for public school buildings follows voters’ over whelming approval in 2018 to borrow the same amount.

And the $50 million for green economy projects, including $12 million for a Roger Williams Park Zoo education center and event pavilion, follows strong voter support in 2018 and 2021 for more than $121 million in related borrowing.

Less certain is how 31 cities and towns will vote on whether to allow the sale of recreational marijuana in their communities. Most are expected to ap prove it, but local leaders in a few communities are urging opposition.

Middletown has already passed zoning laws intended to prohibit most non medical marijuana sales.

Five other communities, however, have already voted to allow recreational sales without community votes, enticed by a 3% tax they’d get to keep on sales within their borders. n

Three years ago, R.I. Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green asked for more business support of Provi dence’s troubled public schools. The pitch was part of her blueprint for managing a state takeover of the schools.

Businesses responded, but not nearly enough to make a significant difference in the direction or performance of those schools.

What happened? COVID-19, of course, is the easy answer. The pandemic has stalled much of the state’s planned re forms, including businesses becoming more of a partner.

And the need, both in Providence and statewide, has only grown during the pandemic.

A recent Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council report found significant statewide K-12 challenges and said an allhands-on-deck response is needed to fix them.

That includes business leaders, both financially and by actively joining the fight.

“We need [businesspeople] at the table,” said Neil D. Stein berg, CEO and president of the Rhode Island Foundation. The state’s future workforce hangs in the balance. What more incentive is needed? n

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R.I.’s top CEOs are backing Question 1

Publicly funded higher education and private industry rely upon each other. Pub lic institutions of higher education – when properly funded and with adequate infra structure – drive research and innovation.

Private industry provides the necessary direction and focus to turn that research and innovation into economic growth and jobs.

We have an opportunity to do big things for both business and higher education now.

more in future economic opportunity. It will also provide Rhode Island with a globally recognized and nationally competitive in stitution that is capable of driving research and development in everything from offshore wind development to sustainable fishing.

TOM GIORDANO GUEST COLUMN

The business community is united in support of Question 1 this November because we know that the University of Rhode Island is one of our state’s most significant, longestlasting and proven economic engines. We also recognize that the blue economy is our opportunity to take ownership of a rapidly changing industry and we can’t afford to pass up an opportunity to lead. The Partnership for Rhode Island is the state’s CEO roundta ble. My members are the CEOs of the state’s largest employers – AAA, CVS Health Corp., Citizens Bank, Bank of America Corp., Hasbro Inc., International Game Technology PLC, FM Global and others. These companies employ tens of thousands of Rhode Islanders and many more globally, and they don’t make an investment without seeing a pathway for a return. The $100 million bond to modernize and strengthen the URI Narragansett Bay Campus will catalyze hundreds of millions

In Rhode Island, our connection to the ocean is more than a slogan. The potential of the blue economy has been touted by business and government leaders from both parties for decades. Former Gov. Donald L. Carcieri – a Republican – positioned the state to be the first in America to open an offshore wind farm. Gov. Daniel J. McKee – a Demo crat – has expanded port infrastructure and job training to grow that industry in Rhode Island. To fully realize our potential, though, we need to establish Rhode Island as a hub of research and development for the blue economy by strengthening and modernizing the bay campus at URI.

A stronger bay campus will also strength en Rhode Island’s positioning to compete for meaningful federal investment.

Earlier this year, the Partnership for RI teamed up with URI, R.I. Commerce Corp. and others to support a competitive U.S. Economic Development Administration grant that had the potential to infuse tens of millions of dollars into our blue economy. Unfortunately, our application was not

We have an opportunity to do big things.

selected. We are undeterred by this setback and have doubled down on our investments in attracting federal infrastructure and eco nomic funds to Rhode Island. Our CompeteRI initiative is fully committed to building the most robust and most competitive blue economy in America. In doing so, our public and private-sector leaders are sending a clear message to federal agencies that Rhode Island is focused on our economic growth.

The investments we make today in higher education – everything from the Rhode Island Promise scholarship program at the Community College of Rhode Island and industry-responsive programs for nurses and teachers at Rhode Island College to once-ina-generation investments in leading-edge academic and research infrastructure at URI – are down payments on a strong economy for tomorrow. If the state does not invest in higher education and we allow our academic infrastructure to age, we run the risk of fall ing behind our neighboring states. Worse, we risk sending a signal to employers that Rhode Island is not ready to compete.

By investing in URI, we can build a trans formative, innovative economic engine that provides opportunities for the long term. That’s why Rhode Island’s CEOs join labor leaders, academic leaders, civic leaders and everyday Rhode Islanders in support of Ques tion 1 and the blue economy bond. n

Tom Giordano is the executive director of the Partnership for Rhode Island. He lives in Barrington.

Some politicians say crime is on rise, but who knows?

JUSTIN NIX GUEST COLUMN

In the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elec tions, Republican candidates across the na tion are blaming Democrats for an increase in crime

But as a scholar of criminology and criminal justice, I believe it’s important to note that, despite the apparently confident assertions of politicians, it’s not so easy to make sense of fluctuations in the crime rate. And whether it’s going up or down depends on a few key questions:

What do you mean by “crime”? What are the “up” or “down” comparisons in reference to? What are the locations or areas being examined?

Here’s an explanation of those elements –and why there is no one answer to whether crime has increased in the past year, or over the past decade.

Usually, when politicians, public officials and scholars talk about crime statistics, they’re referring to the most serious crimes, which the FBI officially calls “index” or “Part 1” offenses: criminal homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, lar ceny, motor vehicle theft and arson.

Because these crimes vary a great deal in terms of seriousness, experts break this list up into “violent” and “property” offenses, so as not to confuse a surge in thefts with an increase in killings.

Each month, state and local police depart ments tally up the crimes they have handled and send the data to the FBI for inclusion in the nation’s annual Uniform Crime Report

But that system has limitations. Accord ing to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics,

fewer than half of all events that could count as crimes actually get reported to the police in the first place. And police departments are not required to send information about known crimes to the FBI. So each year what are presented as national crime statistics are derived from whichever of the roughly 17,000 police departments across the country decide to send in their data.

In 2021, the optional nature of reporting crime statistics was a particular problem because the FBI asked for more-detailed information than it had in the past. Histori cally, the bureau received data from police departments covering about 90% of the U.S. population. But fewer agencies supplied the more-detailed data requested in 2021. That data covered only 66% of the nation’s population. And the patchwork wasn’t even: In some states, such as Texas, Ohio and South Carolina, nearly all agencies reported. But in other states, such as Florida, California and New York, participation was abysmal

With those caveats in mind, the 2021 data estimates that criminal homicide rose about 4% nationally from 2020 levels. Robberies were down 9%, and aggravated assaults remained relatively unchanged.

Rapes are notoriously underreported to police, but the 2021 National Crime Vic timization Survey suggests there was no significant change from 2020.

Those comparisons look at the prior year to assess whether certain types of crime are up or down. Such comparisons may seem straightforward, but violent crime, particu

larly homicide, is statistically rare enough that a rise or fall from one year to the next doesn’t necessarily mean there is reason to panic or celebrate.

Another way to assess trends is to look at as much data as possible. Over the past 36 years, clear trends have emerged. The national homicide rate in 2021 wasn’t as high as it was in the early 1990s, but 2021’s figure is the highest in nearly 25 years.

Meanwhile, robberies have been trending steadily downward for the better part of 30 years. And though the aggravated assault rate didn’t change much from 2020 to 2021, it is clearly higher now than at any time dur ing the 2010s.

These figures are imperfect in other ways, too. The data being used in today’s assertions about crime rates is more than 10 months old and presents national figures that mask a substantial amount of local variation. The FBI won’t release 2022 crime data until the fall of 2023.

It is now well established that crime is not randomly distributed across communities Instead, it clusters in small areas that crimi nologists and police departments often refer to as “hot spots.” What this means is that regardless of whether crime is up or down in cities, a handful of neighborhoods in those cities are likely still significantly and dispro portionately affected by violence. n

Justin Nix is an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Nebraska Omaha. Distributed by The Associated Press.

LAST THING

Nonprofits are businesses too

Michael L. Pearis The Groden Network CEO

Michael L. Pearis became CEO of Providence-based The Groden Network in 2021, after serving as chief operating officer. He has extensive nonprofit and corporate experience, including with the former Fleet Bank, and served as Providence’s finance director from 2012 to 2013. One of the network’s enterprises is the fullservice Groden Greenhouse.

nonprofits endure the misperception that we are not “real businesses.” With over 400 employees, 26 locations and $30 million in revenue, The Groden Network is very much a business.

All nonprofits have important missions to serve their community, and they have strong brands in the communities they serve. In the Groden Network’s case, it’s autism. Outside of our own community, there is less brand awareness and interest in what we do. This branding is important, especially without the large marketing budgets major brands have.

Branding is critical as we create the public-private partnerships we need to fill the ever-growing gap between our contracted public funding and operational costs, develop vocational opportunities for our clients and seek to remain competitive as an employer. This last one continues to

grow in importance as we come out of the pandemic and the nature of work changes. Unlike grocery stores and restaurants, we cannot just raise our tuition or rates when the marketplace demands higher salaries. Furthermore, the human services workforce crisis means the most vulnerable Rhode Islanders are going without critical services.

Another area nonprofits often fail to think like businesses is in resource allocation. Infrastructure updates, particularly technology updates, need to be a priority. The Groden Network is coming out of the pandemic with an electronichealth-record infrastructure to collect data and a state-ofthe-art business-intelligence platform to allow us to analyze that data, ultimately resulting in better client outcomes.

These are the lessons I took with me into the nonprofit sector from the corporate world. n

SALERNO

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Hal Horvat has tea with a friend at a Centreville Foundation event.

Centreville Bank has been caring for the Rhode Island community for almost 195 years. As a financial institution deeply rooted in and committed to the communities where we live and work, we believe that investing in programs and services that offer opportunities to succeed is foundational for a more prosperous Rhode Island.

Our goal has always been to help organizations positively impact the lives of individuals and families for the long term.

And while we are proud of our philanthropic efforts, we understand that it is the nonprofit sector that makes the work of truly giving back possible. We applaud and acknowledge these community-based organizations across Rhode Island for their tireless efforts in making the Ocean State a better place.

The last two years have taught us just how valuable and important these organizations are. The pandemic has had a detrimental impact on many and looking to the future is more critical than ever. This is and continues to be an important time for funders to invest in and support community-based organizations.

Winston Churchill’s words still ring true today. The work we each do every day is important, but real living — and the satisfaction it provides us — comes from what we give back to one another.

Sincerely, Harold M. Horvat

President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board

Proud supporter of these Rhode Island organizations

Adoption RI

Back to School Celebration of RI

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Rhode Island

Capital Good Fund

Central Falls PB Initiative

Children’s Friend and Service Clinica Esperanza

College Crusade Comprehensive Community Action Inc. (CCAP)

Coventry Housing Associates Corporation

Day One Down City Design

Foster Forward

Friends Way Genesis Center

Girls on the Run Rhode Island Habitat for Humanity Providence

Inspiring Minds

Jewish Collaborative Services

Jonnycake Center of Westerly Junior Achievement of Rhode Island

McAuley House

Meals on Wheels: Rhode Island

North Kingstown Food Pantry

Olneyville Housing Corp, DBA ONE Neighborhood Builders

Pawtucket Central Falls Development Corporation

Providence Children’s Museum

Providence Public Library

Reach Out and Read of Rhode Island

Rhode Island Community Food Bank

Rhode Island Write on Sports Ronald McDonald House Saint Elizabeth Community San Miguel School

Shri Service Corps

Sojourner House

Sophia Academy

Special Olympics Rhode Island

The Autism Project

The Sharing Locker Thundermist

Tides Family Services

United Way of Rhode Island URI Foundation

Wood River Health Services

Year Up RI YMCA of Greater Providence (List of 2021 recipients.)

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill

BY SARAH FRANCIS | Contributing Writer

Soaring inflation hurting nonprofits in many ways ASK

Heather Hole Strout what keeps her up at night and she answers without hesitating. “Housing. It’s a big issue. Many we help have lost their homes or are on the verge,” she said. “They have housing insecurity, food insecurity and sometimes mental health issues.”

Strout is executive director at the nonprofit Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Com munity Center in Newport, which last year distributed 654,000 meals to Aquidneck Island residents. Many were forced to choose between putting food on the table or paying rent.

“We’ve seen more people coming to us in need of food assistance. The slightest increase in the cost of anything can put people over the edge,” Strout said. “Using our food pantry may help people stay in their homes. We’ve seen seniors who’ve become homeless recently. No one should have to go through that.”

Price increases caused by soaring in flation became a steady drumbeat during the summer: the consumer price index up 9.1% since June, the highest annual increase since 1981; one-bedroom apart ments in Providence clocking in with a

13% annual increase in rent; and gas at the pump up 60% since June, the biggest 12-month increase since 1980.

And although the CPI has eased slight ly since then, the longer-term effects have taken a goll. One of the MLK Center’s most-valued employees gave notice. “She lives 45 minutes away and can’t afford gas prices,” Strout said. And filling positions has been difficult. “People are expecting much higher wages, which is very difficult for any business, let alone a nonprofit to do overnight,” she said. “This year we gave 4-5% increases to the staff. It’s not enough to compete with inflation, but more than that annually isn’t sustainable to a nonprofit like ours.”

Food prices have also shot much higher – in many cases, more than 10% higher than a year ago; some staples, such as poultry and eggs, have climbed

even higher.

Perhaps no one in the nonprofit world has a clearer view of this than Andrew Schiff, CEO of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. Last year, the food bank distrib uted more than 15 million pounds of food to local pantries, meal sites, shelters, youth programs and senior centers around the state. Some 53,000 needy Rhode Islanders received healthy fruits, vegetables, bread, beans and more through its services.

“In the past, we saw certain types of food increase in price,” Schiff said.

Eggs, for example, became so expen sive that the food bank stopped sourcing them until costs dropped. That’s not an option now, with inflation across the board. “We’re relying on donors to help us,” Schiff said. The food bank is looking for more support from the public and the federal government, which provides onethird of the food bank’s inventory. Schiff says a recent increase of almost $2 billion in federal funding to food banks and school lunch programs across the country will help.

“That’s the message we’re trying to get across,” he added. “The public is aware of inflation, but the reminder they need is that this is a real crisis for low-income families and those on a fixed income. They’re experiencing food price increases in a different way from middle-income families.”

Rising energy prices have also pushed up the costs of moving food from whole salers to the massive Providence food bank headquarters and then on to dozens of final destinations around the state. And while gas prices have eased since the sum mer, the same isn’t true for what we eat.

“We don’t think those costs will come down quickly,” Schiff said. “We anticipate in the next 12 months, they’ll stay high. Food prices are sticky, and once they go up, it’ll take time for them to come down.”

HELPING HAND: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center volunteer Susan Barnes, right, assists a customer in the nonprofit organization’s food pantry in Newport.

PBN PHOTO/DAVID HANSEN

‘People are expecting much higher wages, which is very difficult for any business.’

HEATHER HOLE STROUT, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center executive director

Inflated food prices have also in directly affected how the Providence Children’s Museum does business. The museum is 17,000 square feet in the city’s Jewelry District, where kids can play in unstructured surroundings, far away from the lure of computer games and TV. “Our job is to be a joyful place for families,” said Caroline Payson, the museum’s executive director.

Like many museums around the coun try, the museum relies heavily on ticket sales and memberships to cover operating costs. And like many museums, it took a huge hit because of the COVID-19 pan demic, with admissions dropping to 47% of pre-pandemic levels. The museum was forced to close for six months in the early days of the surge, reopened, then closed again six months later, reopening a second time in July 2021.

As more of the Providence Children’s Museum’s visitors rely on the Supplemen tal Nutrition Assistance Program, more become eligible for discounted tickets. The museum isn’t always recognized as a non profit because middle-class families pay full ticket prices, Payson says. “But more than one-third of the visitors around them have either free or reduced admission,” she said.

Without a large endowment, the museum has become more flexible in hiring staff, whose numbers have shrunk to 37 from 52 before the pandemic. At the same time, it has worked hard to keep salaries and benefits on par with other New England museums. Recent grants have helped with funding and various projects, but the children’s museum still relies on corporate donors and the public to make up for admission decline. At the same time, employees have been asked to fill multiple roles to make up for the museum’s smaller workforce. “We look for staffers who can do more than one thing,” Payson said.

Responding creatively is also a familiar

concept to Comprehensive Community Action Plan, the largest community orga nization of its kind in Rhode Island. CCAP has offered medical and dental care, sub stance abuse counseling, early childhood education and food assistance, among other services, to more than 40,000 clients, thanks in part to government funding and private donations.

In the last year, more than 2,500 Rhode Islanders received heating assistance and still use its food pantry, and more than 18,000 visited CCAP health centers. And while CCAP hasn’t had to eliminate these critical services, it has felt the squeeze of pandemic-related inflation.

A big chunk of increased expenses includes a 4% raise to staff – roughly a cost of $800,000 – as well as an additional $100,000 in other expenses such as utilities.

“Many of our services are free and based on income, so we can’t refuse anyone for a lack of money,” said Joanne McGunagle, CCAP’s CEO and president. “We’ve seen a 1,000-pound drop in food and other donations. People can’t do it now and that’s OK,” she added. “We’ve looked for smaller donations from banks and foundations, $3,000 here or there. We still offer food, including 1,600 pounds from our garden to supplement, but the schools used to do huge food drives and they haven’t been able to do it in the last year or more. It’ll probably start up again.”

CCAP is planning a new health center

URGENT NEED: Rhode Island Foundation CEO and President Neil D. Steinberg said “The case for philanthrop ic giving is as high as it’s ever been.”

and expanding dental services, but supply chain issues and the inflated costs that have bedeviled other building projects are affecting these as well. “The cost of construction is going up as much as 40 to 50% overall, and the dental center came in over budget. We have to rob Peter to pay Paul,” McGunagle said. “We’ve submitted funding requests to the state and federal agencies but haven’t heard yet.”

As the effects of inflation have chal lenged nonprofits to a dizzying degree, the Rhode Island Foundation has boosted its funding to agencies providing direct services to vulnerable residents. Case in point: its ongoing Basic Human Needs Grants, bumped up 50% to $7,500 to local agencies filling emergency food, clothing, housing, prescription, utility and transportation needs.

“We raise money and we have to keep stating the case. Some people think that because federal money is coming in, there’s less of a need, but that’s not true,” said Neil D. Steinberg, the foundation’s CEO and president.

“The war in Ukraine and a volatile oil market send a message that prices are unpredictable,” he said. “If the foundation receives a donation of 100 shares of Tesla, that stock might have been worth more last year and less this year. That affects our fundraising. The case for philanthrop ic giving is as high as it’s ever been.”

Despite the challenges facing the philanthropy world, however, Steinberg remains optimistic about the future. Nonprofits, as a group, will have to look at how they collaborate, and maybe merge, to come up with innovative ideas on how to offer preventative treatments, he says.

“If we can get ahead of the curve in how we provide services, it’s a lot less expensive than interventions later on,” he added. “It’s not doom and gloom. We’ve been through these economic cycles be fore, but it takes a lot of work and money to meet the challenges.” n

‘This is a real crisis for lowincome families and those on a fixed income.’

ANDREW SCHIFF, Rhode Island Community Food Bank CEO

COURTESY RHODE ISLAND FOUNDATION

WAREHOUSE WALK: Rhode Island Com munity Food Bank CEO Andrew Schiff, left, and Director of Operations Jack Russell peruse the nonprofit’s food ware house in Providence.

PBN PHOTO/ RUPERT WHITELEY

Mental health providers are overwhelmed in R.I.

BY ELIZABETH GRAHAM | Contributing Writer

ASCOVID-19 began to creep into Rhode Island in early 2020, Michelle Crossley saw a steady increase in emails from people wondering whether they could schedule an appointment at her small Pawtucket counseling practice.

“It was just overwhelming. At one point I was getting up to three requests a day within months of the pandemic starting,” said Crossley, a licensed mental health counselor who is also president of the Rhode Island Mental Health Counselors Association

Crossley usually works with a total of about 20 clients, but to keep her workload manageable she stopped accepting new clients.

And she wasn’t alone – many mental and behavioral health providers in Rhode Island say that once the pandemic took hold, demand for services soared.

Organizations and smaller clinics took on as many new patients as they could, but low reimbursement rates from commercial insurance and Medicaid made hiring enough staff all but impossible.

“We’re still challenged in that realm, we’re still living with the fact that we haven’t had a rate increase in nine years,” said Dan Kubas-Meyer, CEO of Thrive Behavioral Health Inc. in Warwick.

Wages for licensed mental health coun selors in the Ocean State hover around $14 an hour because of the low rates that insurance and Medicaid reimburse for their services. Medicaid rates, which are determined by state officials, have not been increased in years. In other states, including Massachusetts and Connecticut, higher reimbursement rates mean higher wages for the same jobs.

A commission formed by the R.I. Office of the Insurance Commissioner and the R.I. Executive Office of Health and Human Services plans to begin reviewing reimbursement rates for mental health services this fall, but recommendations aren’t expected until 2024.

The combination of pandemic-induced demand and insufficient pay is crippling mental health care in Rhode Island, many say, including John J. Tassoni Jr., CEO and president of the Substance Use and Mental Health Leadership Council of Rhode Island, a network of 33 organizations.

“People at the highest level need to understand how crucial this is for the

well-being of Rhode Islanders,” Tassoni said. “We had a robust system back in the early 2000s, and now we’ve got a dead system.”

Still, some organizations, such as Thundermist Health Center, a Woonsock et-based community health provider with a behavioral health staff of more than 75, were able to respond quickly as the pandemic brought a wave of patients seeking help with depression, anxiety and substance use.

Early in the pandemic, the nonprofit partnered with the Rhode Island College School of Social Work to train students onsite at Thundermist in the hopes of hiring them.

Funded for two years by the Rhode Island Foundation, and this year by Real Jobs RI, the effort has resulted in 15 new behavioral health hires, said Matt Roman, Thundermist’s chief of innovation and behavioral health.

The shift to telemedicine in 2020 brought another challenge.

Patients began showing up for appoint ments at a much higher rate, and counsel ors were hard-pressed to do behind-thescenes work with the increased time they were spending with clients. To relieve counselors’ workload, Thundermist creat ed the position of behavioral health case manager.

At Thrive, the number of open jobs is about double the pre-pandemic rate. The organization is handling the surge of new

patients by putting them into therapy groups.

“We don’t have the ability to have them seen by individual clinicians immediate ly,” Kubas-Meyer said. “If someone is in crisis, we can have our crisis group look at them … we’re able to respond to the most acute needs and channel them into therapy.”

United Way of Rhode Island, which operates the state’s 211 call center, logged about 1,640 calls for mental health-related needs in 2019.

In 2020, the number of calls shot to more than 8,200. Last year, the volume de creased to about 3,300 calls, but now 2022 is on track for a 40% spike, said Courtney Smith, United Way’s 211 program director.

Many agree that higher reimbursement rates are key to alleviating the crisis.

Providers across the state are paying close attention as state legislation to in crease commercial insurance reimburse ment rates is expected to be submitted again next year.

If the legislation, which is likely to be opposed by insurance companies, fails to pass, and state lawmakers do not raise Medicaid rates, the results could be devas tating to mental health care, said Lau rie-Marie Pisciotta, Mental Health Associa tion of Rhode Island executive director.

“If rates aren’t increasing, providers can’t keep their doors open,” she said. “It’s just so counterproductive for a state not to invest in its mental health system.” n

VITAL SERVICE: Ashlee Austin, right, site inclusive health clinician at Thundermist Health Center, meets with a patient at the center’s West Warwick location.

PBN PHOTO/ELIZABETH GRAHAM

BY ANDY SMITH | Contributing Writer

How will the state use $250M to ease its housing woes? RHODE

Island has received $1.1 billion in federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act, passed in response to the eco nomic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of that, $250 mil lion is allocated for housing, particularly affordable housing.

The Housing Network of Rhode Island, a Pawtucket-based state association of 17 nonprofit housing developers, cites a report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition that Rhode Island has a deficit of about 24,000 homes for extreme ly low-income renters, an 11% increase over 2021. (Area median income for an extremely low-income household of three is $26,500.)

Colin Penney, executive director for South County Habitat for Humanity Inc., says that extremely low-income families only represent a subset of the larger problem. Many Rhode Island families with somewhat higher incomes are also unable to afford housing.

Penney says that for six prospective houses, Habitat receives about 150 appli cations.

Asked how much it would cost to com pletely eliminate Rhode Island’s housing issue, affordable housing advocates say billions. Just how many billions, no one could say. But they say it’s foolish to con template that kind of spending without a comprehensive statewide plan.

“$250 million is significant,” HNRI Executive Director Melina Lodge said. It has an opportunity to be transformational. But we try to be very clear that this is a down payment, not an endpoint.”

Housing finance is a complex business. For one thing, numbers are always chang ing as population, costs and the economy evolve. Construction costs, for example, went up 40% since January 2020, accord ing to the National Association of Home Builders.

Brenda Clement, director of Housing Works RI, a statewide source of housing data based at Roger Williams University, says most nonprofit housing organizations use between four and 10 funding sources for their projects, including other federal programs, low-interest loans, tax credits and more.

Private philanthropy is another source of revenue for housing nonprofits.

Crossroads Rhode Island, for example, raised or earned about $22 million in 2021. Of that, about $4 million, or 18%, came from contributions, fundraising events and in-kind donations.

South County Habitat for Humanity

has a $1.7 million annual budget. Much of it comes from corporate and individ ual donations of either cash, material or labor. (Habitat operating expenses are paid by profits from a thrift store at 1555 Shannock Road in Charlestown.)

Individual donors make small cash donations or volunteer to come out to a building site and swing a hammer. (That includes the new homeowners, who are required to put in between 200 and 400 hours of time on their own houses.)

The $250 million in ARPA money will be distributed over three fiscal years and won’t all go toward pouring foundations and building walls. Money is allocated for site acquisition, predevelopment and development of affordable and middle-in come housing, which will create about 1,500 housing units, according to the R.I. Office of Housing and Community Development.

But there is also funding to give

down-payment assistance for first-time buyers, to address homelessness in the state and to develop that badly needed comprehensive state housing plan.

Affordable housing advocates also cite as obstacles the high cost of land in Rhode Island, plus different land use policies in 39 cities and towns, each with its own pri orities. Many municipalities, Lodge says, oppose multifamily housing units.

“Historically, zoning has been used to protect the interests of property owners who want their property to retain its val ue,” R.I. Housing Sec retary Josh Saal said. “We need to think hard whether we want to be a state that can keep everything the same … paradoxically, for some things to stay the same, some things also have to change.”

Affordable hous ing advocates are cautiously optimistic that the state is finally taking housing seriously.

“I do think it’s a higher priority; now we need the actions,” Rhode Island Foundation CEO and President Neil D. Steinberg said. “We’ve all spent a lot of time brainstorming, saying if we only had the money, we could do this or we could do that. This is the first time in my memory that we’ve had the money first.” n

‘We try to be very clear that this is a down payment, not an endpoint.’

MELINA LODGE, The Housing Network of Rhode Island executive director

IN THE WORKS: Pictured are affordable housing units under construction on Bowdoin Street in Providence.

COURTESY ONE NEIGHBORHOOD BUILDERS

5Q: Nina Stack

The Champlin Foundation executive director

BY JAMES BESSETTE | Bessette@PBN.com

1Have the requests for donations from The Champlin Foundation remained high in the past year?

The need for support continues to increase and is reflective of the tremen dous demand being felt by our nonprofit community. These organizations were hit hard by the [COVID-19] pandemic, adding programs [such as] food delivery, health services and client transportation, yet even as recovery continues, the demand has not subsided. Organizations such as Higher Ground International, the Center for Southeast Asians, and the Women’s Refugee Center – even Community Librar ies of Providence – all saw the demand for services grow substantially and they continue to deliver above and beyond their mission.

2What kinds of nonprofits have sought donations from the foundation the most as of late?

The Champlin Foundation works across nine areas of focus: arts and culture, conservation and parks, education, health care, historic preservation and heritage, libraries, social services, youth services and welfare of animals. We consistently see and support requests across all these areas, but certainly social services stand out when we look at the past year. There are a lot of organizations doing great work in this space: Sojourner House Inc., Amen ity Aid and Better Lives Rhode Island are just a few examples.

3Can you offer some examples of nonprofits that have benefited from grants they received from the foundation?

It’s the communities that benefit most, as that’s where the impact of nonprofits is most deeply felt. There are examples in every city and town, from Mt. Hope Learning Center, where children and adults build critical life skills, and CODAC [Behavioral Healthcare], which provides lifesaving substance abuse intervention, to the Ocean Community [YMCA]. Last year alone, we supported 30 first-time grantees, and it’s exciting to see these organizations – some new and others just new to Champlin – bring forward services that make a meaningful difference for Rhode Islanders.

4Recently, The Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum, Crossroads Rhode Island and the Boys and Girls Club of Providence each received $1 million from Champlin. What about those organizations stood out to the foundation for them to receive those large grants?

In all three cases, they presented transfor mational projects that expand their reach and impact exponentially. These organi zations have proven records of success in their respective fields, and they put forward well-conceived, thorough project plans with clear visions for progress.

Honoring the region’s Indigenous history, addressing the state’s urgent housing crisis and expanding services [such as] ac ademic intervention and career readiness for students – these are exactly the kinds of priorities that transform lives and

communities, and that we’re privileged to be able to help.

5What, if any, new donation initiatives does the foundation have planned for the future?

Capital funding has a massive impact but is often the hardest to raise. The Champlin tradition of supporting bricks, mortar and equipment is our anchor, yet we continue to evolve and learn from our grantees. We are more focused on bring ing a racial-equity lens to grantmaking and understanding how applicants are serving historically marginalized com munities. We also recognize that access to “know-how” on facility expansion is a significant need for many organizations, and we are exploring how to help close that knowledge gap. n ‘As recovery continues, the demand has not subsided.’

PBN PHOTO/ELIZABETH GRAHAM

JANUARY

5/TBD Crossroads Rhode Island Women

Women crossroadsri.org

5/TBD We Share Hope Heroes of Hunger Breakfast wesharehope.org

JUNE

6/TBD United Way of Rhode Island The Night is Young unitedwayri.org

6/TBD United Way of Rhode Island Day of Action unitedwayri.org

AUGUST

8/26 Leadership Rhode Island

RI Statewide Scavenger Hunt riscavengerhunt.com

8/TBD Girl Scouts of Southeastern New England Back 2 Troop Day gssne.org

SEPTEMBER

9/TBD We Share Hope Mission Impastable wesharehope.org

9/TBD The Groden Network Bike to the Beach grodennetwork.org

OCTOBER

10/2 Westbay Community Action, Inc. Golf Tournament westbaycap.org

10/TBD Crossroads Rhode Island Neighbors Helping Neighbors crossroadsri.org

10/TBD United Way of Rhode Island Annual Celebration unitedwayri.org

10/TBD Girl Scouts of Southeastern New England Leading Women of Distinction Awards gssne.org/leadingwomen

NOVEMBER

11/TBD Make-A-Wish Massachusetts and Rhode Island Evening of Wishes Gala massri.wish.org/events

Adoption

Island’s

GOALS

For nearly 40 years Adoption Rhode Island (ARI) has been dedicated to ensuring the best lifelong outcomes for children, teens and families impacted by foster care and adoption.

are driven by the belief that every child deserves a place to call home and a family to be there during the best and worst of times.

UPCOMING EVENTS

November is National Adoption Month.

year's theme, Small Steps Open Doors

a special focus on permanency for older youth.

Connect with ARI on social media, (@adoptionri) and learn how small steps can help build relationships with youth and open doors to opportunities that once seemed impossible. Be a part of opening doors to permanency and guiding a young person to the best possible future. #NationalAdoptionMonth

FUNDRAISING

exists because foster children, youth and young adults need us. And we need you – to make certain their lives are much better when they leave us than when we meet them.

community is a better place when every

is safe, loved, healthy and hopeful, and every teen has a path to a successful future -no matter where their journey began. When

support ARI’s mission with a donation, by attending or hosting a fundraiser, learning more, or helping others to discover how they can help, you create opportunities that

a child’s life – and you make this a better Rhode Island for all of us.

No matter where their journey began, every child deserves to flourish into adulthood and never age out of foster care to homelessness.

Visit our website, AdoptionRI.org for a calendar of upcoming events, including a schedule of monthly information meetings – a great way to begin exploring your interest in foster care or adoption.

Watch for news about Gathering to Give 2023 coming in the spring with a special tribute to ARI’s 40th anniversary. Grand events for a great cause where fun, friends, and our mission are celebrated across the state while raising funds that help change the life of a child.

Donations from ARI’s fundraising close the gap between what government funding provides and what it truly costs for ARI’s team to surround every child we meet with what they need to fulfill dreams of a better future. We rely on fundraising for more than 35% of our program costs each year, or close to $1 million.

Learn more about how your donation will connect children and youth to healing, hope and a better future.

Visit our website at AdoptionRI.org or contact us at 401-865-6000 email: adoptionri@adoptionri.org.

FUNDING SOURCES

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

PARENTE HOWARD DULUDE TODD COSTA JULIE NAVARRO Board President Board Vice President Board Treasurer Board Secretary

MEMBERS

PATRICIA BENNETT DONNA CALDWELL ELIZABETH CARABALLO-WESLEY

HON. FRANK CAPRIO FRANK CARPANO MURRAY CHARRON

CHRISTOPHER DEPALO FRANCES DIFIORE DOLPH JOHNSON

CHARREL MAXWELL DR. MARION ORR JOHN OTTAVIANI BRET WILLIAMS

DARLENE ALLEN CEO and Executive Director Adoption RI

STEVEN

Children First, and Always.

Our community is a better place when every child is safe, loved, healthy and hopeful. No matter where their journey began, when you invest in our mission, you create opportunities that transform a child’s life – and you make this a better Rhode Island for all of us.

Adoption Rhode Island

The

Who

are

this

is

engaging in

education

homeless

range of

shelter,

employment.

is the state's leading provider of

for those experiencing

We are also the only developer of

exclusively for this population in Rhode

year, more than 3,500 men, women

our critical services.

Safety: We promote an environment free from physical and emotional harm and ensure a feeling of security and comfort to all.

Respect: We acknowledge the intrinsic worth of every person.

Effectiveness: We deliver services and manage the organization with efficiency, professionalism, innovation and accountability.

impact

than 3,500 men, women, and

housing and housing-related

at Crossroads.

individuals and families had a place to call home.

people accessed emergency shelter.

How

can help

Donate to support Crossroads' mission and help save lives. Visit www.crossroadsri.org to securely donate online.

Double your impact on ending homelessness through your employer's matching gift program. Visit bit.ly/employeegiftmatch to get started.

Sponsor or attend one of our signature fundraising events.

Organize a drive to raise money or collect critical items for neighbors in need. Stay connected by subscribing to our

following us on social media.

Santilli Chief Executive Officer

Executive

GOALS

• To be an international leader in the development and delivery of the highestquality

that empower individuals of all abilities and their families to achieve

and productive lives.

• To provide those in our care with leading edge technology, equipment, and facilities.

• To be good community partners and ensure that those with neurodiversities have the greatest opportunity for community integration

OPPORTUNITIES

•

• Donations

• Targeted program

• Vocational

•

•

•

Wannamoisett

•

•

MISSION STATEMENT

The Groden Network’s mission is to provide a caring, person-centered, comprehensive continuum of supports across the lifespan for individuals with autism, other neurodevelopmental disorders, and associated behavioral and life challenges, to lead productive, dignified, and satisfying lives. This is achieved through professional expertise in implementing effective and innovative strategies and techniques; research; technology; education and training; and most importantly involving and supporting clients and families.

Michael Pearis

These

Since 1976, The Groden Network has been on the leading edge of innovations to ensure that individuals with autism and other intellectual and developmental disabilities lead the most productive lives possible

Innovation - Continuum of Care

school,

Families

We

Increase program capacity so that families never go

Provide cutting edge technology for our school and all of

Deliver job training so our students and adult clients can become part of the growing neuro diverse workforce in Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts

Ensure our buildings, 20 group residences, and 45 vehicle fleet are safe and comfortable for individuals in our care

Scan the code and learn more about Groden!

MISSION STATEMENT

College Visions empowers low-income and first-generation college students to achieve the promise of higher education, while leading the way for innovative college planning and advising.

GOALS

College Visions helps students from underserved communities in RI achieve their dream of

98% of College Visions students enroll in college immediately after high school

a college

with only 44% of low-income students in RI. College Visions continues to support students once they enroll in college and an impressive 71% of our students earn a degree within 6 years of enrollment compared to 42% of low-income RI college students.

At a time when RI needs more degree-holding workers, College Visions students are earning degrees and becoming diverse young professionals working as educators, nurses, designers, financial analysts, accountants, entrepreneurs, and more. A college degree is an individual achievement and also an investment in a family, community, and our shared society.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Donate: College Visions relies almost entirely on donations to run our program. Your donation can provide our students with individualized college application assistance, ensure that every College Visions student has an advisor who provides year-round support while in college, or direct financial support to a student with extraordinary need.

To make a gift visit www.collegevisions.org/donate/

Sponsor: We have several event sponsorship opportunities. Interested companies and individuals should contact Moira at moira@collegevisions.org or (401) 490-3996.

“Being a first-generation college student means a lot to me because I’ve been working toward this since I was a little kid. I come from a family of 5 and I am the middle child. I’ve always wanted to go to college for myself and my family. College Visions helped me turn my dreams into reality, I just need to take advantage of my opportunity and make the best out of it. Hard work and dedication go a long way. I am proof of it.”

ANGEL

Volunteer: Volunteers support College Visions students throughout the year by acting as mock admissions interviewers and supporting students to complete college applications. We are also recruiting career mentors and volunteers with expertise in mentoring.

For more information, please contact Monephia at monephia@collegevisions.org or (401) 490-3996.

Lamont Gordon Executive Director

Boston College Class of 2025

Michelle Carr Executive Director

Nicole Benjamin Chair Pete Rumsey Vice Chair Sulina Mohanty Treasurer

Ashia Graziano Secretary

Ting

Hamza

Sharon Conard-Wells

Vinny

Priscilla

Shallcross

Christine

MISSION STATEMENT

We engage and connect people through shared experiences that positively transform individuals, organizations, and communities.

VISION & GOALS

We envision a Rhode Island that is flourishing — economically, civically, culturally — built on a foundation of ever-improving human capital whose strengths and potential we spend each day revealing and igniting.

we see the lessons of this lively leadership experiment being shared and amplified around the country and the world to nurture the kind of fully-engaged societies that create lasting, positive change.

Our strategic goals over the next four years include: activating our network of over 2,800 cross-generational alumni, fostering engagement and belonging through inclusive shared experiences, and building the Leadership Hub to serve as the go-to center for leadership and innovation across the Ocean State.

OPPORTUNITIES

Donate Your support fuels our mission and removes financial barriers for leaders through our tuition assistance scholarships for our Core Program, and ensures our College Program remains 100% tuition free. See if your gift can be matched or increased through your employer’s giving program, support LRI through a donor advised fund, or leave a legacy gift to LRI.

Make Rhode Island Stronger Invest in your teams while investing in a local nonprofit organization. Hire LRI to bring high-impact training initiatives and consulting services that drive cultures of engagement, inclusion, wellbeing, and performance. Sponsor or Attend Be in the room. Whether attending events as an individual or supporting us as an organization, be a part of the transformative experiences that we create by convening a diverse group of committed Rhode Islanders.

FUNDRAISING / EVENTS

Inspiring Leaders

Wednesday March 22, 2023 LRI’s annual luncheon recognizes

simultaneously serving as our most

January 2022,

has distributed more than

class members who otherwise might not have been able to participate.

Statewide Scavenger Hunt, Saturday & Sunday August 26 & 27, 2023

What began as a one-time fundraiser

is now a highly anticipated

and friends

Rhode Island and beyond.

more than 100 locations

state,

of excitement,

Statewide Scavenger Hunt

the fun in fundraiser.

20 Hemingway Drive

East Providence, RI 02915 401.781.9474

massri.wish.org

@MassRIWish

@makeawishmassri

@makeawishmari

Donate Make a one time donation of any amount, a monthly gift, or a tribute in honor or memory of a loved one

Donate a vehicle If you have a car, truck, motorcycle, RV, or other vehicle that you no longer need, a donation to Wheels for Wishes will benefit Make A Wish

Donate airline miles Help wish children and their families travel to their dream destinations Minimums are low, so anyone can give Once donated, your miles will never expire

Host a fundraiser Engage your network and community through an online campaign, in person, or virtual fundraising event

In-kind Donate goods or services to help grant wishes. Needs include transportation, store or restaurant gift certificates, skilled trade support (landscaping, carpentry, painting), auction and raffle prizes, and professional services

Volunteer Volunteer for wish granting, office

and

MISSION

wish to

Skyla,

from Woonsocket,

wish to

Noah,

from Smithfield,

Burkitt lymphoma

Nevaeh,

from

from North Kingstown,

MEALS ON WHEELS OF

LOCATION

70 Bath Street Providence, RI 02908

PHONE NUMBER 401.351.6700

WEBSITE www.rimeals.org

ANNUAL REVENUE

Meals on Wheels of RI is a $3.69-million organization, with 20% of its annual operating budget raised through donations from foundation, corporate, and individual supporters. There is no required cost for participation in any of our nutritional programs.

YEAR ESTABLISHED

Our founder, Joseph Brown (1924-2014), established Meals on Wheels of RI in 1969 to help homebound Providence seniors get enough nutritious food to keep them healthy. In 2022, we celebrated delivery of our 20-millionth home-delivered meal.

GOALS

MISSION STATEMENT

Our mission is to meet the nutritional and other special needs of older adults and other eligible populations in order to help them maintain their independent lifestyles.

Our unique service model focuses on addressing food insecurity and social isolation as risk factors for loss of independence amongst homebound and other atrisk older adults and Rhode Islanders statewide. In 2021, our programs served a total of 3,365 clients: 3,029 homebound clients with more than 357,000 meals through the HomeDelivered Meal Program and 336 clients through the Capital City Café Program. In 2022, we delivered our 20-millionth home-delivered meal and are launching “Meals on Wheels of RI, Inc. Strategic Plan 2022-2025: Planning of our next 20 million meals.”

FUNDRAISING/EVENTS

DONATE: The pandemic exacerbated the already existing need for us to reach more at-risk Rhode Islanders across the state who, because of food insecurity and social isolation, live with the daily worry of losing their ability to maintain independent living.

A donation of $42 this year will help provide a full week of home-delivered meals to one of those Rhode Islanders.

VOLUNTEER: Each weekday, we deliver meals across 79 delivery routes; 70 of those routes are delivered by volunteers. Each year, we rely on the partnership of approximately 500 volunteers to help us enact our mission and we are always looking for our next delivery heroes.

Megan Grady Executive Director

Corey McCarty Board Chair

POTTER LEAGUE ANIMAL CARE & ADOPTION CENTER

LOCATION

87 Oliphant Lane Middletown, RI 02842 401.846.8276

POTTER LEAGUE PETS IN NEED VETERINARY CLINIC LOCATION

Amaral Street Riverside, RI 02915 401.270.3832

POTTER LEAGUE SPAY & NEUTER CLINIC LOCATION

Elm Street Warwick, RI 02888 401.369.7297

WEBSITE potterleague.org

EMAIL info@potterleague.org

NUMBER

ANNUAL

YEAR

ANIMALS

LEADERSHIP:

Brad Shear, CAWA

CEO

BOARD OFFICERS

Elena Kissel

President

Terrance Tinkham

Vice President

Mike Grandchamp

Treasurer

Mary Edwards

Secretary

As the heart of a compassionate community, we enrich lives and promote the humane treatment of animals.

GOALS

The Potter League is Rhode Island’s go-to animal care and resource center. We provide shelter, veterinary care, training, spay & neuter, owner assistance programs, humane education, and the opportunity for hundreds of animals to find loving homes each year. We offer programs and services that help animals and support those who love them. Our programs aim to:

Save Homeless & At-Risk Animals

At our Animal Care & Adoption Center, we provide lifesaving care, shelter, and new beginnings for our community’s most vulnerable animals. We also temporarily house pets for people in crisis.

Support Animals in the Community

We offer a wide range of programs and services for animals in the community that strengthens the human-animal bond and keep pets with the people who love them. We are expanding access to veterinary care for companion animals and providing community support programs that help all pet owners provide better lives for their pets.

Work collaboratively

We strive to work collaboratively with local community-based human service organizations and animal welfare and rescue groups locally and nationwide.

OPPORTUNITIES

Volunteer Volunteering at the Potter League is a fun and gratifying experience as you work with animals and fellow animal lovers. Our volunteers ensure the health and happiness of animals in our care and contribute to the success of our lifesaving programs. To learn more about volunteering: volunteer@potterleague.org.

Donate As an independent 501(c) (3) nonprofit, the Potter League is neither affiliated nor a sub-chapter of any national organizations. Our lifesaving work is funded by service fees, fundraising, and events. We rely on many types of gifts to achieve our mission, from one-time online donations to donations in honor or memory of a loved one.

Sponsor Businesses that contribute to the Potter League enable us to make a difference in the lives of more than 10,000 animals annually and enrich the lives of the people who love them. We have several opportunities to help your business become one of our treasured Community Humane Heroes. By becoming a business partner of the Potter League, you’re improving the lives of pets and their families while connecting your business to a cause that so many Rhode Islanders are passionate about.

To learn more about donating or sponsoring: development@potterleague.org.

RHODE

LOCATION

655 Broad Street Providence, RI 02907

PHONE NUMBER 401.274.6347

WEBSITE www.riFreeClinic.org

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

FTE

AmeriCorps VISTAs

ANNUAL REVENUE

The Clinic raises 100% of its $1.5 million operating budget from donations. Our patients receive care at no cost. With this $1.5 million, the Clinic leverages over $7.5 million more in donations of goods and services each year.

YEAR ESTABLISHED

The Clinic was established in 1999 by former First Lady Stephanie Chafee. The Clinic celebrates its 25th Anniversary in 2023.

GOALS

Forrest Daniels CEO

William

Carrie Bridges Féliz, MPH

Jeffrey Chase-Lubitz, Esq.

George

Mark Gim President

STATEMENT

The Rhode Island Free Clinic’s mission is to provide free, comprehensive medical care and preventive health services to adults who have no health insurance and cannot afford those services; and to serve as an educational training site for aspiring health care professionals.

PROVIDE VITAL CARE TO VULNERABLE RHODE ISLANDERS

You can help us provide vital care to uninsured, low-income adults as the pandemic lingers on. Working poor and people of color are hardest hit. They suffer disproportionately and need healthcare. You can provide primary care, dental, behavioral health, specialist services, labs and tests, medicine, and COVID-19 care –which are essential for health and vitality.

VOLUNTEER TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

If you are a healthcare professional, language interpreter, or administrative support, you can volunteer!

FUNDRAISING / EVENTS

This is a critical moment for the Clinic. Our Medical, Dental, and Behavioral Health Volunteers and the people we serve remain on the front lines. They need your help now more than ever before!

Demand for care is increasing every day. DONATING RIGHT NOW WILL ALLOW MORE PATIENTS TO GET THE CARE THEY NEED.

OPPORTUNITIES

VOLUNTEER: Our award-winning Clinic provides cost effective health care to Rhode Island adults who need it most. We seek Volunteer Medical, Dental, and Behavioral Health professionals. We need Spanish Interpreters to help provide care to Spanish speaking patients. Each year our 500+ volunteers coordinate 14,000+ patient visits including medicines, and COVID-19 continuing care. For more information to volunteer, contact Isabel Eggleston at ieggleston@rifreeclinic.org or 401.274.6347 x203.

GIVE: We leverage every $1 donated into $5 of additional donated medicine and services. Just 5% of our budget goes to administration. Our cost to deliver comprehensive health care to vulnerable Rhode Islanders is just $500 per person per year, far less than the national estimated average of $11,000. Make your donation go further by visiting our website or contacting Marvin Ronning at mronning@rifreeclinic.org or 401.274.6347 ext. 322.

Rhode Island Free Clinic honors our inspiring Corps of Medical and Dental Volunteers, Community Partners, and Donors for their extraordinary commitment to ensure vital care for vulnerable adults. Thank you.

BOARD

Dominique Alfandre

Kamilah A’Vant

Dante Bellini

Erik Carleton

Melissa Cummings

Kas DeCarvalho

Nicholas Denice

David Fontes

Gary Glassman

Bari Harlam

Barbara Haynes

Dave Laverty

Rajani Mahadevan

Amanda D. McMullen

Denise Parent

David W. Piccerelli

Pablo Rodriguez

Merrill Sherman

GOALS

With the various non-profits out there, why should you invest in a TV station? Because Rhode Island PBS is more than just a TV station – we are a community partner with a goal to be Southeastern New England’s media choice for high-value and high-quality local content. We focus on our audience; create and acquire local content that aligns with our mission, is storydriven, and aligns with funding opportunities; extend our prominence as a provider of highquality educational media; and forge production partnerships with media and community organizations of distinction.

OPPORTUNITIES

There are many ways to engage with Rhode Island PBS and our viewers.

• Corporate Underwriter: Your fifteen or thirty second “ad” can be broadcast on our air for $15-$600.

With the support of our members and sponsors, we serve the needs of all generations within Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. We spark imagination, explore our history, and reflect the values of our diverse community. Guided by civic engagement, we provide unique, high-quality local, national, and international programming, and digital content that educates, inspires, and engages.

Our vision: Rhode Island PBS strives to be the most trusted resource for life-long enrichment and alternative, engaging content, reflecting the values of our diverse community.

• Program Sponsor: Your business can help fund your favorite program. Various packages available.

• Uncorked! Sponsor: Our annual event in April is a great opportunity to be included in on-air promotional spots, social media posts, invitation, and event program. Details available upon request.

Partnering with Rhode Island PBS publicizes your business to people and markets not available through other forms of advertising.

• 51% of viewers say that sponsors are different and better than other networks and have a more favorable view of a brand that sponsors PBS.

• 40% of consumers are more likely to be motivated to purchase from a PBS sponsor than from advertisers on other networks. Increase your exposure. Support our mission. We want to work with you!

FUNDRAISING

Rhode Island PBS relies on the support of donors, sponsors, and members to fund our educational programs and services, and produce content for broadcast, Video On Demand, and in-classroom instruction. We raise money through on-air membership pledge appeals and host membership cultivation and public events.

Our annual fundraiser “Uncorked!” connects sponsors to 300+ food and wine enthusiasts, with several levels of sponsorship available.

We offer virtual and live events with beloved public television performers and series hosts.

Of course, there is content sponsorship for your steady presence on air year-round.

MISSION STATEMENT

David C. Reiss Chief Executive Officer

Heather Alge Chief Operating Officer

EXECUTIVE BOARD OFFICERS:

James Campagna President

Lisa Rafferty Vice President Anthony Dennis Treasurer

John B. Affleck, Esq. Secretary

MISSION STATEMENT

Our mission is to empower people to improve the quality of their lives.

WHAT WE DO

The Fogarty Center provides a variety of community-based supports to children and adults with intellectual, developmental and other disabilities throughout Rhode Island. Adults have access to 24-hour Residential, Independent Living, Day and Employment opportunities, Clinical supports and Self-directed services. For children and young adults, we offer Respite, Personal Assistance Services and Supports (PASS), Home Based Therapeutic Services (HBTS), and Enhanced Outpatient Services (EOS).

Our goal to is to increase independence by offering a variety of individualized opportunities designed to assist individuals to be included and accepted as a valuable community member.

HOW TO HELP

As a 100% Medicaid funded organization we will gladly accept all financial contributions. Over the past few years, we have minimized our fund-raising efforts as the economy has been challenging to all. Additionally, not having a professional fund raiser, we found ourselves taxing our already overburdened staff. If we added up all their “volunteer” time, we lost money on the fundraising efforts.

What is most valuable to us is personnel. We need full and part time employees for a variety of roles from direct service professionals to finance associates. We strive to recruit caring people who are committed to make a positive difference in the lives of someone else as well as their own. Operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, there are a variety of shifts and locations. We offer competitive wages, signing and referral bonus, tuition reimbursement and a generous health benefit package.

Volunteers are greatly appreciated. We have opportunities for college interns who need clinical/observation hours and supervision in a graduate or undergraduate human service curriculum. We welcome volunteer high school students, introducing them to the field in hopes of developing emerging leaders. We also encourage retirees and other folks that have personal time to devote.

The Fogarty Center has locations convenient to the University of RI in Kingston, Rhode Island College in Providence and Bryant University in Smithfield.

Whether interested in employment or volunteer opportunities, you can reach us by visiting our website, telephone 401-245-7900 or email at info@fogartycenter.org.

BOARD MEMBERS

Alden M. Anderson Jr.

Marcela Betancur

David Bonenberger

Anthony Botelho

Brian Carroll

Barbara Chernow

Wes Cotter

Joanne M. Daly, CDFA®

Jayne M. Donegan

Paola N. Fernandez

James R. Galloway

Courtney Hawkins

Junior Jabbie

Dolph Johnson

Wendy E. Kagan

Barbara A. Mullen, Ph.D.

Cortney M. Nicolato

Gregg Perry

Yahaira “Jay” Placencia

Betsey A. Purinton,

Ramona Royal,

Frank D. Sánchez,

Rena Sheehan,

Suresh Swaminathan

MISSION STATEMENT

Our mission is to unite our community and resources to build racial equity and opportunities for all Rhode Islanders. We facilitate Rhode Islanders helping Rhode Islanders, mobilizing corporations, government, policymakers, social service agencies, and thousands of individual donors and volunteers.

GOALS

Root causes. United solutions.

in affordable housing, improving

and expanding access to adult education

training.

working to ensure that all Rhode Island

walk into the classroom with the tools

learn. This includes increasing literacy levels and expanding access to afterschool and summer learning programs.

We’re building nonprofit resiliency and leadership development. We’re also empowering donors, engaging corporations, and connecting Rhode Islanders with volunteer opportunities.

We’re driving systemic change through public policy and research. And, because democracy isn’t a spectator sport, we’re training Rhode Islanders to be advocates and working to increase voter turnout.

United Way 211 is the go-to helpline for Rhode Islanders seeking social supports and has been instrumental during the pandemic – answering over half a million calls in the last two years.

Through research, advocacy, and grantmaking, we are building a state where everyone can live, learn, and thrive. For example, we helped secure a record investment of $250 million from the state budget to increase affordable housing production and preservation.

And last year, we invested over $6 million from our Community Impact Fund in programs backed by research, data, and results. We’ve enhanced childcare, expanded learning for school-age children, and provided access to life-changing workforce development programs that put people to work in better jobs.

OPPORTUNITIES

Advocate Help us mobilize Rhode Islanders to vote, run for office, and advocate for the platforms they are most passionate about.

Donate Help us make Rhode Island a place where everyone can live, learn, and thrive by donating to support our work.

Engage Contact us to create a shared purpose program encompassing corporate giving, employee volunteering, workplace giving campaigns, and related communications programs.

Join Deepen your involvement with our mission by joining the Impact Network, the Rhode Island

Young Leaders Circle.

the state via our online Volunteer Center.

Cortney Nicolato

President and CEO

WE

LOCATION

310 Bourne Avenue Building 70 Rumford, RI 02916

PHONE NUMBER

FUNDRAISING EVENTS

Mission Impastable: Corporate teams compete to see who can bag the most pasta in a certain period of time.

Flames to Feed: Formal event at Skyline during Waterfire with Silent Auction.

COMMUNITY PARTNERS

>> Providence Rescue Mission – Providence, RI

Provide food and other necessities for those who need it most in our community.

Johanna Corcoran Executive Director

>> Iglesia de Cristo Casa Sobre la Roca - Providence, RI

>> Centro de Innovación Mujer Latina - Providence, RI

>> Veterans Association of Bristol County - Fall River, MA

>> St. David’s on the Hill Church – Cranston, RI

>> Amenity Aid – Warwick, RI

>> East Bay Food Pantry – Bristol, RI

>> MAE Organization for the Homeless – West Warwick, RI ( Woonsocket, Providence, Pawtucket Chapters) Loaves & Fishes RI – Providence, RI

>> Providence Community Fridge (Broad St) and Refri PVD (Westminster St)

>> Iglesia de Dios Viviendo en Fe – Pawtucket, RI

>> Breadlines – Riverside, RI

>> Coalition to End Homelessness

>> Dorcas International Institute

OPPORTUNITIES

Hope on the Road: We provide food deliveries five days a week to non-profit groups in Rhode Island who serve meals or distribute food to their community members.

Pantry Pick-up: If you have nonperishables you wish to donate, schedule a Pickup, and we’ll send a volunteer to your home to collect your items and distribute them out to communities in need.

Hope Market: Hope Market, a budget-friendly marketplace in Rumford that provides goods at low cost to under resourced communities. This market allows those who are experiencing difficult times to get the supplies and food they need. Anyone is welcome to visit Hope Market.

Corporate Volunteer Opportunities:

> Group Sorting Events

> Holiday-Themed Collections/Sorting

> Food Drives

LOCATION

Administration: 224 Buttonwoods Ave., Warwick, RI 02886

Program Services: 487 Jefferson Blvd., Warwick, RI 02886

PHONE NUMBER 401.732.4660

EMAIL info@westbaycap.org

WEBSITE www.westbaycap.org

NUMBER

MISSION

The mission of Westbay Community Action, Inc. is to empower and mobilize people through our programs, partnerships, and advocacy to gain greater self-sufficiency.

BACKGROUND

The 1960s were a turbulent time. President Lyndon B. Johnson went to “war” changing how America fought poverty, determined to mold his country into the great society of his dreams. The War on Poverty inspired local organizations to help others with everything from education to keeping food on the table. Warwick Community Action, now Westbay Community Action, was founded in 1966. Over fifty years later, Westbay’s commitment to helping the local community continues to strengthen.

BRAG LINES

In the year of 2021-2022,

◆ We provided emergency food to more than 7,000 people, ensuring that our families received the necessary food to keep them healthy.

◆ More than 20,000 people received services, helping them stay safe and independent in their homes.

◆ Over 3,700 households avoided crisis with energy assistance.

◆ More than 2,000 people received case management services.

◆ More than 1,300 older adults participated in home delivered or congregate meal programs.

PAY IT FORWARD

Westbay will continue to help people when they need it most. We promise to look at new and innovative programming to better serve our community. We will always listen to those we serve to attain the services that are most truly needed. Westbay will always be ready to meet any challenge or obstacle that is put in front of us.

Whether you need a hand… or have one to lend, we’re here.

Faith • Hope • Charity “It is in giving that we receive…” -Prayer of Saint Francis

ABOUT US

Since 1925, the Diocese of

numerous works to meet the social, spiritual and

have been made possible by donations to the annual Catholic Charity Appeal. The diocese is the second largest provider of human services in Rhode Island, second only to the state government. Donations to the Catholic Charity Appeal are used

of

to support the designated agencies. Our annual appeal strives to raise over $6.5 million

OUR IMPACT

• 14,600

• 12,500

• 700

• More

DONATE

Consider

to support the vital outreach and charitable programs of the church.

House

Shelter

2021.

St. Martin de Porres Multi-Service Center in 2021.

Immigration & Refugee Services Office in

by annual donations.

GIRL SCOUTS OF SOUTHEASTERN NEW ENGLAND

500 Greenwich Avenue

RI 02886

PHONE NUMBER 401.331.4500

WEBSITE gssne.org

NUMBER

GIRLS ON THE RUN RHODE ISLAND

Box 72787

RI 02907

PHONE NUMBER 401.541.5907

kasha.hanflik@girlsontherun.org

NUMBER OF

MISSION STATEMENT

Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.

WITH GIRL SCOUTS, YOU CAN DO IT ALL.

Girl Scouts is a leadership development program designed to help youth discover their personal best, connect with others in an increasingly diverse world, and take action to improve their communities.

This year, with support from our generous donors, GSSNE was able to:

• Deliver free programming to over 550 youth in traditionally underserved Communities

• Send girls in foster care to day and overnight camp for free

• Honor 110 Highest Award Girl Scouts as they bring their ‘take action’ projects to life.

GIRL SCOUTS NEEDS YOU!

• Volunteer your time and talents

• Sponsor our events and troops (and come to Cookies & Cocktails in March!)

• Donate! Visit gssne.org or scan the QR code to learn about volunteering, donating, and more

MISSION STATEMENT

Girls on the Run inspires girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running.

OUR IMPACT

Girls on the Run RI serves third through eighth grade girls throughout Rhode Island and Bristol County, Massachusetts. Our first season with 34 girls started in 2012 and now 700 girls participate annually. Since then, we have empowered over 4,000 girls across 90+ sites. Our social-emotional learning and physical activity programs are led by more than 150 volunteer coaches every year. Girls on the Run RI provides 50% of our participants with financial assistance each season.

Girls on the Run was recognized as one of three social-emotional learning programs with an integral emphasis on equitable and inclusive education in the 2021 Social-Emotional Learning Guide by Harvard University and the Wallace Foundation.

OPPORTUNITIES

LOCAL PARTNERSHIPS Invest in her power and potential and make a transformative impact on the lives of girls and their families in your community.

EVENT SPONSORSHIPS The Girls on the Run 5K and 1 Mile Fun Run is on May 21, 2023 at Colt State Park.

VOLUNTEERS Get involved with us at one-time events or on a longer term basis and help activate the limitless potential of our participants.

PROVIDENCE PROMISE

LOCATION

2 Regency Plaza, Suite #4 Providence, RI 02903

PHONE NUMBER 401.383.3381

WEBSITE pvdpromise.org

EMAIL info@pvdpromise.org

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

full-time staff

ANNUAL REVENUE

Less than $1,000,000

YEAR ESTABLISHED

2017

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

The board is composed of local business and education leaders, parents, students, and champions of our work. Board Chair, Dan Baudoiun, is the former Executive Director of the Providence Foundation, and Founder, Richard Lappin, is the President of Lisco Development, Inc.

BACKGROUND

Low-income students with a college savings account (CSA) are 4x more likely to complete college than those without. Providence Promise invests in youth by partnering with families to open and invest in 529 CSAs. Families and students have the opportunity to grow the CSA through our robust Early Scholarship and Family Engagement Programs. We are the only college and career readiness program in RI, working with students as early as birth. Of our currently enrolled 850 students, nearly half are under the age of 10.

GOALS

RI BIO

LOCATION

225 Dyer Street Providence, RI 02903

PHONE NUMBER 401.400.5499

WEBSITE ri-bio.org

EMAIL Connect@RI-Bio.org

MISSION STATEMENT

Crucial to human life, the Life Sciences develop technologies, therapeutics, and products that transform lives. Life Science workers help us combat debilitating and rare diseases; reduce our environmental footprint; feed the hungry; use less and cleaner energy; and have safer, cleaner and more efficient industrial manufacturing processes.

MISSION STATEMENT

Providence Promise promotes high educational aspirations and more equitable opportunities for Providence Public School students by advocating for college savings accounts and family engagement, increasing financial literacy, and reducing the financial burden of higher education.

Over the next three years, Providence Promise will increase enrollment by 300-400 students per year and cumulative savings in CSAs by $500,000 per year. If Providence Promise is effective in achieving its goals, 1,600 students will hold $2.5M in CSAs by 6/30/25. With this growth in mind, Providence Promise hopes to continue to attract and retain new funders.

VISIT OUR WEBSITE TO

• Sign up for our newsletter

• Support our campaign on Giving Tuesday

• Attend and/or sponsor our Annual 529 Day Celebration on May 20, 2023

Breakthrough science, powered by RI Bio. WHY SUPPORT THE RI BIO FOUNDATION?

We help innovators, students, clinicians, institutions, and corporations in their efforts to advance science through education, collaboration and advocacy. We share information and resources, provide access to capital, create industry connections, and offer informative programs and training.

YOUR GIFT COULD:

• SUPPORT a drug design start-up as they improve cancer therapies or develop lifesaving vaccines.

• EDUCATE a displaced worker for a new career path in Life Sciences.

• FOSTER INNOVATION and bring new ideas to market.

• EMPOWER women in science by sharing insights and experience from trailblazing leaders.

• INSPIRE the next big breakthrough with leadership training.

Help support the most vulnerable children in Rhode Island

Who You Can Assist

accelerates impact

OPPORTUNITIES TO ENGAGE

also

power. Asthenis

manage

Eugenio Fernandez, Asthenis

you and

Francis Parra Executive Director

MISSION STATEMENT

R.I.02903

R.I.02903

R.I.02903

R.I.02902

TEATRO ECAS IS

The only year-round Spanish language theater company north of New York City. Improving Young Lives Through the Arts in Providence and Pawtucket, annually serving hundreds of public-school children with Spanish-language after school arts. Draws audiences from all over New England and abroad.

Through virtual performances and workshops reaches thousands of people in Latin America and world-wide. Silver Certificate of Transparency from GUIDESTAR.

Established in 1997, the mission of Teatro ECAS is to promote theater as self-discovery, within an urban multicultural community, with particular emphasis on children and young adults. Participants discover hidden talents and self-confidence. Francis Parra is Artistic and Executive Director. As the largest professional Spanish-speaking theater in New England, with a 25-year history, we aim to elevate our Providence community through the power of the arts.

CELEBRATE

Come and celebrate Teatro ECAS’s 25th Anniversary at ¡Extravaganza! Saturday, Nov. 19 at our soon-to-be new home at 679 Valley Street, Providence.

• Tickets: teatroecas.org

• Sponsor information: ybeauregard@teatroecas.org

• Support Teatro ECAS: teatroecas.org/support

& ADVOCACY ORGANIZATIONS

2021:

2021:

2021:

2021:

2021:

2021:

2021:

2021:

Rhode Island Foundation | rifoundation.org Neil D.Steinberg 1, CEO and

HopeHealth | hopehealthco.org DianaFranchitto, CEO and president

Plan InternationalUSA | planusa.org MustafaKudrati, CEO and

The Fogarty Center | fogartycenter.org DavidC.Reiss, CEO

EdesiaInc. | edesianutrition.org NavynSalem, founder and CEO;Maria Kasparian, executive director

United Way of Rhode Island | unitedwayri.org CortneyNicolato, CEO and president

East Bay Community Action Program | ebcap.org

DennisRoy, CEO and president 2

Saint Elizabeth Community | stelizabethcommunity.org MatthewJ.Trimble, CEO and president

Comprehensive Community Action Program

comcap.org JoanneMcGunagle, CEO and president

Community Care Alliance | communitycareri.org BenedictF.Lessing Jr., CEO and president

Rhode Island Community Food Bank | rifoodbank.org AndrewSchiff, CEO

PACE Organization of Rhode Island | pace-ri.org

JoanKwiatkowski, CEO

Children's Friend and Service | cfsri.org DavidCaprio, CEO and president

1 Union Station Providence, R.I.02903 (401) 274-4564 $292.4 mil. 12/31/21 Nonprofit funder

1085 North Main St. Providence, R.I.02904 (844) 671-4673

$82.9 mil. 09/30/21

Nonprofit health care organization

155 Plan Way Warwick, R.I.02886 (401) 738-5600 $68.2 mil. 06/30/21 Global girls' rights and children's charity

310 Maple Ave., Suite 102 Barrington, R.I.02806 (401) 245-7900 $63 mil. 12/31/21

550 Romano Vineyard Way North Kingstown, R.I.02852 (401) 272-5521 $57 mil. 12/31/2021

50 Valley St. Providence, R.I.02909 (401) 444-0600

19 Broadway Newport, R.I.02840 (401) 847-7821

$47.3 mil. 06/30/21

$44.7 mil. 06/30/21

2364 Post Road, Suite 100 Warwick, R.I.02886 (401) 773-7400 $43.5 mil. 12/31/21

311 Doric Ave. Cranston, R.I.02910 (401) 467-9610 $39.1 mil. 06/30/21

800 Clinton St. Woonsocket, R.I.02895 (401) 235-7000

200 Niantic Ave. Providence, R.I.02907 (401) 942-6325

225 Chapman St. Providence, R.I.02905 (401) 490-6566

153 Summer St. Providence, R.I.02903 (401) 276-4300

$36.2 mil. 06/30/20

$34.5 mil. 06/30/21

$33.8 mil. 06/30/22

$33.5 mil. 12/31/22

Provides services to children and adults with intellectual, developmental and/or other disabilities

Manufacturer of ready-to-use therapeutic and supplemental food for malnourished children

Nonprofit that provides for the community resources to build racial equity and opportunities for all Rhode Islanders

Health and human services provider offering Head Start and family development/social services

Home health services, adult day health centers, apartments for seniors and mobility-impaired adults, assisted living, short-term rehabilitation, and nursing home care

Social services, health care nonprofit

Nonprofit social services organization

Addresses food insecurity by acquiring healthy, nutritious food and distributing it to Rhode Islanders in need

Assists and cares for older adults with significant health needs

Nonprofit that improves the well-being and healthy development of Rhode Island’s most vulnerable young children

Private

Published

October,

spot to share

in the 2023

to over 28,000

online

year long.

27, 2023

HAS

YOU COVERED

PBN PHILANTHROPY CALENDAR

to be included

to philanthropic events in our

to all

organizations.

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