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Rhode Island
E-bike safety, Teen Dance and more reap benefits from Rhode Island Foundation grants
NEWPORT – Dozens of nonprofit organizations serving Newport County residents will share nearly $340,000 in grants from the Rhode Island Foundation. The funding will support work ranging from educational programs for school children and disaster recovery preparation to food pantries and arts activities.
“We are grateful to be able to help these organizations carry out their crucial work. We are fortunate to partner with passionate donors who make it possible for us to support nonprofits that are on the frontlines of serving the needs of their communities,” said David N. Cicilline, the Foundation’s president and CEO, in a statement.
Bike Newport, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Newport County, the Jamestown Community Food Pantry and the St. Lucy’s Conference of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Middletown are among the organizations that received funding through the Foundation’s Newport County Fund.
Bike Newport received $5,000 to launch an e-bike safety training initiative. The program will train riders to safely use e-bikes. The organization expects 150-200 residents to participate in the full multi-session curriculum with on-bike training.
“The exploding popularity of e-bikes underscores the importance for communities everywhere to take timely and effective measures to promote their safe operation. Their increasing use is easy to observe on Aquidneck Island, and indeed everywhere. E-Bikes are dependable, comfortable, and easy to use. E-Bikes are prevalent, growing ever more so, and by all indications they are here to stay,” said Bari Freeman, executive director.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Newport County received $3,000 to support its new Teen Dance Program, which was conceived by participants in the Club’s SMART Girls program to provide an alternative to wrestling, which is the only other organized physical activity.
“By providing participants with a physical activity in performance art, an opportunity to develop confidence and teamwork and the experience of giving back and supporting the community by performing at community events, we keep them returning to the Club to benefit not only from this program and our other activities will help keep them on the path to success and give them a safe place to go,” said Joe Pratt, executive director and CEO.
The Jamestown Community Food Pantry received $10,000 to support the increased costs of purchasing food and personal care and pet items. The organization provides clients with meat, fish, juice, cheese, yogurt, milk, fresh fruits and vegetables, in addition to non-perishables.
“People often think that a town like ours can’t possibly have a need for an emergency food pantry. We have witnessed the exact opposite of that. The beneficiaries of our program are those individuals and families in Jamestown who need emergency food help when their budgets are tight. Many of our clients are shut-ins, or without reliable transportation, and our services offer them what they need without having to travel across one of the bridges to get help,” said Deb Nordstrom, executive director.
The St. Lucy’s Conference of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Middletown received $10,000 to provide emergency financial assistance to people facing eviction, utility shut-offs, prescription drugs and clothing among other needs. Last year, the organization helped 137 households with 157 adults and 167 children.
“In Newport County, there simply is not enough affordable housing to meet the demand. The populations in Newport County who benefit from our mission are the poor, the marginalized, children, the elderly and people who are disabled. The assistance we are able to provide varies according to circumstance and needs, but our most common outcome is keeping individuals or families sheltered in their homes with utilities,” said Judy Weston, president.
Aquidneck Community Table in Newport, the American Red Cross, Conexion Latina Newport, East Bay Community Action Program, FabNewport, Girl Scouts of Southeast New England, the Jamestown Arts Center, the Katie Brown Educational Program, the Little Compton Community Center, Live and Learn in Jamestown, Lucy’s Hearth in Middletown, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Newport, Meals on Wheels, Newport Contemporary Ballet, newportFILM, the Newport County YMCA, the Newport String Project, Rhode Island Black Storytellers, Rhode Island Slave History Medallions in Newport, Sail Newport, St. John’s Lodge Food Bank in Portsmouth, Turning Around Ministries in Newport and the Washington Square Services Corporation in Newport are among the nonprofits that also received grants.
The Newport County Fund awards grants of up $10,000 to strengthen or expand established programs, to support policy or advocacy efforts on behalf of community concerns, to fund new projects that focus on significant problems or opportunities, and to leverage strategic collaborations and partnerships.
In making the funding decisions, the Foundation worked with an advisory committee comprised of residents from every community in Newport County.
Established in 2002, the Fund has awarded more than $6 million in grants for programs and services for residents of Jamestown, Little Compton, Middletown, Newport, Portsmouth and Tiverton over the years.
It is just one of the grant programs that enable the Foundation to serve Newport County communities. Since 2022, the Foundation has awarded more than $10.9 million in grants to Newport County nonprofits.
New East Bay Bike Path bridges are open and ready for bikes
What’s it like to ride over the new East Bay Bike Path bridges? We sent a reporter to try them out.
I’ve long thought bike paths are among Rhode Island’s premier attractions, up there with the beaches, the mansions and the bay.
We like to knock government, but credit where it’s due, the state has done an amazing job building out an incredible pedaling network.
It’s clearly a priority.
At least I thought it was.
But they’ve just dropped the ball on what should have been a beautiful new stretch.
The plan was to finish a mile-long connector from the East Providence end of the Henderson Bridge all the way to the East Bay Bike Path.
There was even $25 million set aside to get it done.
Except WPRI recently reported that it’s now been canceled.
The main fault lies with the Trump administration, which is no friend of bike paths, and moved to kill that $25 million.
But it gets complicated, as government funding always does.
To try to rescue that money, the state DOT reportedly worked with the administration to refunnel it into a road project. Specifically, the $25 million will now be spent helping upgrade the mile-long highway between the Henderson Bridge and North Broadway in East Providence, turning it into a more pleasant boulevard.
That totally sounds worthy.
But it’s insane to throw away the bike path plan.
Especially for a particular reason in this case.
They’d already put a ton of money into starting it.
When state planners designed the new Henderson Bridge between the East Side and East Providence, they included a bike path.
It’s a beauty – well protected from traffic by a barrier, a great asset for safely riding over the Seekonk River.
The plan was to continue it another mile or so along East Providence’s Waterfront Drive, ultimately connecting with the East Bay Bike Path, which runs all the way to Bristol. Which, by the way, is one of the nicest bike paths you’ll find anywhere.
But alas, that connector plan has been canceled.
So the expensive stretch over the Henderson Bridge to East Providence is now a bike path to nowhere. Once the bridge ends, the path on it continues a few hundred yards or so and then, just … ends.
Too bad.
We were so close.
Most of the stories on the issue have been about the complex negotiation to rescue the $25 million by rerouting it to that nearby highway-to-boulevard project. But I don’t want to get lost in the weeds of that bureaucratic process here because it loses sight of the heart of this story.
Which is that an amazing new addition to one of the nation’s best state bike path systems has just been scrapped.
You can knock the Rhode Island government for blowing a lot of things.
The PawSox.
The Washington Bridge.
But they’ve done great with bike paths.
And especially, linking many of them together.
Example: not too many years ago, Providence bikers had to risk dicey traffic on the East Side to get to the more pleasant paths in India Point Park and on the 195 bridge to the East Bay Path.
But the state fixed that by adding an amazing connector that starts behind the Salvation Army building and beautifully winds along the water of the Seekonk River for a mile or so.
That makes a huge difference – and no doubt has avoided some bike-car accidents.
We were close to a comparable stretch on the other side of the river – that’s what the $25 million would have done.
But it’s now apparently dead.
Online commenters aren’t happy about it.
On a Reddit string, “Toadscoper” accused the state of being “complicit” with the feds in rerouting the money from bikes to cars.
And there was this fascinating post from FineLobster 5322, who apparently is a disappointed planner who worked on the project: “Mind you money has already been spent on phase one so rejecting it at this point is wasting money and also against the public interest … but what do I know? I only worked on the project as an engineer … I didn’t get into this to build more highways. I do it … to give back to communities and give them more access to their environment.”
Wow. One can imagine the state planning team is devastated. That’s not a small consideration. Good people go into government to make life better in Rhode Island, and it’s a bad play to take the spirit out of the job by first assigning a great human-scale project and then, after a ton of work, trashing it.
A poster named Homosapiens simply said, “We just accept this?”
Hopefully not.
The first stretch of the path over the Henderson Bridge is done, money already sunk.
What a shame to leave that as a path to nowhere.
It doesn’t have to happen.
Between Governor McKee and our Washington delegation, there’s got to be a way to get this done.
There’s got to be.
mpatinki@providencejournal.com
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
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