PROVIDENCE – From shared gardens to playground expansion, 47 projects across 25 Rhode Island cities and towns are receiving a total $400,000 in grants to fund neighborhood-based, community-building projects.
“Our grants will produce places to gather, create friendships and inspire new collaborations that will build community connections all over our state,” said Neil D. Steinberg, president and CEO of the foundation, in prepared remarks.
Grants awarded in this round of funding from the foundation ranged from $3,000 to $10,000.
Twenty-eight of the projects received the maximum $10,000 grant. They were:
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- Arts, Sports, and Technology Resource Organization; expansion of free youth programming in Central Falls including ASTRO Summer Sports Camp
- Books are Wings, construction of between six and eight Little Free Libraries in Central Falls to promote reading
- Bike Newport; funding to convert the company’s Big Blue Bike Barn to solar energy and reuse rain water
- Community MusicWorks; support of a collaborative performance project looking at the memory of an empty lot in the West End at 1326 Westminster Street, which will be the future home of the organization
- Cranston; renovations to the Eden Park Elementary School playground
- DownCity Design; support of the firm’s CityWorks / Providence Riverwalk guided design tours
- Friends of Salter Grove; repairs to the Friends of Salter Grove playground with the City of Warwick and R.I. Department of Environmental Management
- Fuerza Laboral; interviews of formerly incarcerated individuals by similar former inmates throughout Central Falls
- Little Compton Public Schools; upgrades to the Wilbur McMahon School gymnasium to make it into a community gathering space
- Lucy’s Hearth; launching of the new bicycle service Lucy’s Cycles Program
- Melville Elementary School, construction of the Melville Outdoor Learning Zone to include an outdoor classroom with tables and a whiteboard, a rain garden, a horticulture area, a handicap accessible pathway, and a nature play area
- Middletown; creation of an eight-week summer music series called the Music and Fire Beach Night series
- Middletown Tree Association; funding to complete the final phase of the Valley Park Tree Planting project at a site which was previously declared contaminated by the R.I. Dept. of Environmental Management
- Mixed Magic Theatre & Cultural Events; presentation of an ethnically-diverse concert series representing heritage-sharing and neighborhood-building in Pawtucket
- Mosaico CDC; streetscape improvements including new bicycle racks and trash bins for the Wood Street neighborhood in Bristol
- Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project; erection of a monument in Newport’s Liberty Square to commemorate the lives of Africans who were brought to the City by the Sea as part of the Atlantic slave trade
- North Kingstown; restoration of the Ryan Park playground
- North Scituate Volunteer Fire Department; community first aid and CPR training instruction
- Pawtucket School Department; construction of a music studio and creative space at Shea High School for student interdisciplinary projects, after school opportunities, and community engagement
- Ponaganset High School; installation of a half-size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Wall in Washington, D.C. and developing an archive of oral history accounts from veterans of the foreign war
- Tides Family Services; funding of existing community garden improvements and installation of a new greenhouse
- Thundermist Health Center; construction of a playground for children ages five through 12 of all physical abilities
- Warwick; revitalization of the Apponaug Village as a pedestrian-friendly area
- Woonasquatucket Valley Community Build and the Steel Yard; completion of the Olneyville Community Fitness Trail
- Woonsocket-based Connecting Children and Families; restoration of the Stan “the Bulldog” Eason Park playground in the city’s Constitution Hill neighborhood
- World War II Foundation; construction of the organization’s Center for Intergenerational Learning in a previously-vacant space in South Kingstown
- West Broadway Neighborhood Association; construction of a toddler-appropriate playground in Dexter Park
- The Westerly Land Trust, conversion of a vacant lot to an outdoor community gathering space
Descriptions of all 47 projects, work on which is expected to be underway before the end of the year, are posted on the foundation’s website.
The projects were funded in part through a gift from long-time donor Anne Sage.
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a staff writer for PBN. You can follow her on Twitter @FlashGowdey or contact her via email, gowdey-backus@pbn.com.
