RIF lifeblood for community outreach

HOME GROWN: Osbert Duoa, a sales manager at Farm Fresh Rhode Island, works at the Pawtucket Wintertime Farmers Market in the Hope Artiste Village in 2015. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
HOME GROWN: Osbert Duoa, a sales manager at Farm Fresh Rhode Island, works at the Pawtucket Wintertime Farmers Market in the Hope Artiste Village in 2015. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Osbert Duoa moved to Rhode Island with his mother when he was 5 years old. By the time he turned 14 he was skipping school to get into fights.

“I felt like the world was in my hands and I could do whatever I wanted,” Duoa told Providence Business News earlier this month. His actions eventually landed him on probation, which he broke and subsequently served seven months in juvenile corrections. He was released under the directive of the nonprofit Tides Family Service Inc. Youth Transition Center.

At the age of 16 his life began to change for the better when he started working with the Harvest Kitchen Project, a 20-week culinary initiative and job-readiness training program run by the nonprofit Farm Fresh Rhode Island Inc. and the R.I. Department of Youth and Families, Division of Juvenile Correction.

Harvest Kitchen is one of several programs run by Farm Fresh, which wouldn’t be around to help people such as Duoa, says Jesse Rye, co-executive director of food-system enterprise, without the financial support of the Rhode Island Foundation, which next year will celebrate its 100th anniversary.

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“[RIF provided] some of the first critical funding that allowed us to grow as an organization,” Rye said.

When Duoa joined Harvest Kitchen he found himself operating in a world disconnected from the one he’d been growing up in. He was compensated for making preserved foods using ingredients sourced from local farmers, which – at first – cast doubt into the young man’s mind.

“I didn’t think it was going to work … I didn’t think it was going to work for me, but as I went along, it changed … I changed,” Duoa said.

Duoa just celebrated his 21st birthday and says he’s staying out of trouble. He still works with the Harvest Kitchen as a sales manager selling products made by teenagers facing the same kinds of challenges he did.

His story, although unique, reflects an overarching trend seen among Harvest Kitchen participants.

Between 2010 and 2013, Farm Fresh recorded a 7 percent recidivism rate among juvenile offenders who participated in the program. In comparison, the recidivism rate of the 606 juveniles who were in the custody of the Rhode Island Training School (juvenile corrections) in 2012 was about 16 percent, according to 2013 statistics from Rhode Island Kids Count Inc.

From 2005 to 2014, RIF provided Farm Fresh with $231,750, just a fraction of its giving portfolio that benefits programs across the state. The foundation tallied a third consecutive record-breaking year of giving last year, recording $38.8 million in grants given to more than 1,400 nonprofits. The group also had a best-ever fundraising year, receiving $33.7 million in new gifts from individual, organizational and corporate donors, which has been the lifeblood of the foundation since its creation nearly a century ago.

“It could be your next-door neighbor” contributing, said Jessica David, foundation vice president of strategy and community investment. “We have over 1,300 individual funds at this point.”

RIF is the nation’s second-oldest community foundation, two years younger than The Cleveland Foundation, which started in 1914.

Former Sen. Jesse H. Metcalf, a Republican who served in Congress from 1924-1937, donated the first $10,000 to the Rhode Island Foundation in its fledgling years. RIF had more than $800 million in total assets recorded at the end of 2014.

The nonprofit is trying new ways to expand its already increasing endowment by initiating and facilitating community involvement. In 2012, amid the U.S. financial crisis, David said the foundation saw “a real need and void for leadership” in philanthropy, so it created a number of economic-development initiatives and established the Civic Leadership Fund.

“People stepped up,” David said.

Finishing its third year, the foundation raised a record-breaking $308,843 for the fund, and its yearly event “Make It Happen,” has yielded several new relationships, including one with the College and University Research Collaborative. Scholars from Rhode Island’s 11 colleges make up the group, now in its second year.

Presented with statewide issues such as infrastructure, workforce and regional competitiveness, the group is tasked with producing data-driven research for state lawmakers to make better-informed policy decisions.

The group received $100,000 from both the foundation and Rhode Island Commerce Corp. in its first year and $75,000 in its second.

Program director Amber Caulkins says the financial support has been instrumental in moving the idea forward.

“Having that support allowed us to pursue other grant opportunities,” Caulkins said. “It wouldn’t have been possible [otherwise].” •

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