The Rhode Island Foundation, the state’s biggest nonprofit funder, has a new leader at the top. Ann-Marie Harrington, a Portsmouth resident, is stepping into the role of Board of Directors chair, the organization recently announced.

Harrington, who brings her experience as an entrepreneur and marketing tech executive to the table, is taking over from Dr. G. Alan Kurose after his three-year stint.

 “I am delighted to pass the baton to Ann-Marie, who has demonstrated a deep and thoughtful commitment to the Foundation’s mission. It has been an honor to serve, and I thank my colleagues on the Board for their support and guidance,” said Kurose, who had been chairman since 2022, in a statment.  

The Foundation’s 15-member board, which Harrington now heads, sets the course for the organization. In 2023, they handed out a whopping $89 million in grants to 2,500 nonprofits – a new record for the Foundation.

“I’m honored to be part of this dynamic philanthropic organization that is driving real change and lasting improvements in Rhode Island. I truly believe in our state and its potential,” said Harrington in a statement. “It is an honor to lead an organization that works closely with donors to respond to the immediate as well as long-term needs of Rhode Islanders.”  

Currently, Harrington is at the helm of business intelligence, digital operations, and web-based lead generation technologies at Creative Planning, one of the biggest registered investment advisory firms in the U.S.

Before this, Harrington founded Embolden, a digital marketing and tech company. The firm served 200 community foundations, nonprofits, and Fortune 500 companies before being bought by Crown Philanthropic Solutions.

David N. Cicilline, the Foundation’s president and CEO, is thrilled about Harrington’s new role. “We’re looking forward to growing our impact across Rhode Island with Ann-Marie as our Board chair,” he said.

Harrington’s been on the Foundation’s Board since 2015 and is active on both the Nominating and Governance Committee and the Finance Committee. She’s got a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Bryant University and a Master of Social Work from Rhode Island College.

It’s not even half-way through December, and Rhode Island has seen snow, a bomb cyclone, freezing temps and some warm days. Does it leave you wondering that the rest of the winter will be like?

The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which has been around since 1792, has put out their predictions for the 2024-2025 winter. They tout themselves as being 80% accurate.

This winter they’re calling for a “gentler” season than normal.

“This winter, temperatures will be up and snowfall down throughout most of the United States,” reports Carol Connare, the Almanac’s editor-in-chief. “While there will still be plenty of chilly temperatures and snow for most slopes, the high heating costs associated with the season shouldn’t hit so hard. We’re predicting a temperate, uneventful winter—potentially a welcome reprieve from the extremes of recent years.”

What will winter 2024-2025 be like in Rhode Island?

Rhode Island, which is part of the Atlantic corridor in The Old Farmer’s Almanac predictions, can expect to see a little less snow than normal and temperatures will be slightly above normal.

For temperatures, the almanac says they’ll be slightly above average overall, but February will be 2% colder than normal.

“The region will also experience shots of cold in mid-December, early and late January, and late February,” the prediction says.

More: What temperature should you set your thermostat to? Department of Energy has an answer

How much snow will Rhode Island have this winter?

When it comes to both snow and rain, The Old Farmer’s Almanac is predicting that precipitation will be slightly below normal in Southern New England.

But, there will be some snow. They’re forecasting the most snow will fall in late December in late February.

How does the Old Farmer’s Almanac make predictions?

According to its website, The Old Farmer’s Almanac makes its predictions by comparing solar activity with weather patterns.

The almanac says it utilizes multiple academic disciplines for its predictions, including solar science, climatology and meteorology.

It also says the weather forecast methodology is the modern version of a formula created by the Almanac’s founder, Robert B. Thomas, in 1792.

How accurate are the Old Farmer’s Almanac’s predictions?

The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which is slightly different than the Farmers’ Almanac, claims an 80% accuracy rate on its predictions.

Seth Jacobson and Melina Khan contributed to this report.

On Tuesday afternoon, organizers cut the ribbon on the first state-sanctioned safe consumption site for illegal drugs in the United States. The facility—located in Providence, Rhode Island—stems from a 2021 bill creating a pilot program for overdose prevention centers (OPCs) in the state.

Operated by the nonprofit Project Weber/RENEW in partnership with addiction care provider VICTA, the new facility is expected to begin offering supervised drug consumption services as soon as it receives final licensing approval.

Once that happens, researchers at Brown University will be following the developments.

“The goal is to identify how OPCs operate in the United States,” Brown epidemiology professor Brandon D.L. Marshall said in a university post about the project. “If they are working, what makes them particularly helpful for people? In what ways do they connect people to addiction treatment and care? How can they best be integrated into a community that’s been hard hit by the nation’s overdose crisis? Those are some of the things we’d like to tease out.”

While controversial, overdose prevention centers have been lauded by academics and harm reduction advocates as a promising way to reduce drug-related deaths and connect people with social services, including treatment for drug use disorders.

The advocacy group Doctors for Drug Policy Reform (D4DPR), for example, recently published a paper arguing that OPCs “represent a wise, cost-effective, and necessary use” of funds received through settlements of lawsuits against opioid companies.

Providence Mayor Brett Smiley (D) attended Tuesday’s ribbon-cutting at the OPC in his city to show his support.

“People with substance abuse disorder are going to use,” he said. “What’s different here is that they will use in a supervised fashion with medical professionals on staff so that they do not die, and then there will be services wrapped around.”

Marshall, the Brown researcher, said in an interview with the Public’s Radio that he led a 2011 study that “demonstrated a 35 percent reduction in overdose mortality after the Overdose Prevention Center opened in Vancouver, Canada.”

He also pointed to a study out of France that he said “found a more than 50 percent reduction in overdoses among people who used overdose prevention centers in that country compared to people who used other harm-reduction programs.”

“I would argue that the evidence in other countries is very promising and compelling,” he said in that interview.

OPCs are already operating in some countries and in New York City, where supporters say they’ve prevented numerous overdose deaths. The New York centers operate with city approval but are not sanctioned by the state.

Meanwhile, Minnesota and Vermont also recently authorized OPCs at the state level.

The federal stance on OPCs remains murky. On one hand, the Biden administration has let sites in New York City move forward, along with plans for the soon-to-be opened Rhode Island facility. On the other, Biden’s Justice Department has continued to stand in the way of another would-be OPC that organizers are trying to open in Philadelphia. (The Supreme Court in 2021 rejected a request to that hear that case, which was first filed during the Trump administration.)

Congressional researchers have highlighted the “uncertainty” of the federal government’s position on the facilities, pointing out last November that lawmakers could temporarily resolve the issue by advancing an amendment modeled after the one that has allowed medical marijuana laws to be implemented without Justice Department interference.

Meanwhile, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow has tacitly endorsed the idea of authorizing safe consumption sites, arguing that evidence has effectively demonstrated that the facilities can prevent overdose deaths.

Rahul Gupta, the White House drug czar, said in June that the Biden administration is reviewing broader drug policy harm reduction proposals, including the authorization of supervised consumption sites, and he went so far as to suggest possible decriminalization.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) put out a pair of requests for applications in December 2021 to investigate how safe consumption sites and other harm reduction policies could help address the drug crisis.

The Brown University research into the Providence OPC is one of the projects being funded by NIH, the university said.

Lisa Peterson, the chief operating officer at VICTA, one of the groups operating the center in Providence, told STAT News that she expects the facility to save lives and improve quality of life for city residents in general.

“I don’t think anybody wants to continue to see people die, and this is the evidence-based intervention that can supplement the work we’re doing with Narcan distribution and other types of harm reduction,” she said, describing the space as “only one part of a much broader approach to harm reduction.”

“It has positive outcomes on the neighborhood in terms of cleanliness,” Peterson added, “in terms of your kid not walking to school and seeing somebody overdosed on the sidewalk.”

Marshall said in the Brown University post about the research that the team’s primary goal “is to determine how engaging with an OPC impacts the health and well-being of people who use drugs.”

“We will assess outcomes including changes in overdose risk, uptake of treatment for substance use disorder and engagement with other health and social services,” he explained. Researchers will also analyze “whether neighborhoods surrounding the OPC experience a greater change in overdose rates, measures of drug-related public disorder and economic conditions following the opening of the OPC, compared to neighborhoods without such a center.”

Initial conversations with neighbors, business owners and workers in proximity to the OPC “found that 75 percent of people we spoke with are supportive of the center being in their neighborhood,” Marshall said. “While these results still need to undergo peer review, they represent among the highest levels of public acceptability for OPCs ever observed in the United States.”

Operators at Project Weber/RENEW did not immediately respond to an email from Marijuana Moment asking about the timeline for the OPC’s final license approval.

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Photo courtesy of Jernej Furman.