Community Works Rhode Island is proud to release its 2009 Annual Report and 2010 Annual Plan. The report is available as a PDF, click here to view the report.
Community Works Rhode Island creates opportunities within the neighborhoods it serves for people to live in affordable and healthy homes, to improve their lives and to strengthen their communities. The goal is to transform underserved neighborhoods to be more sustainable.
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(Providence, RI September 28, 2009)
Community Works Rhode Island’s Youth Garden Club will celebrate its partnership with Local 121 restaurant, with an onsite cooking demonstration by Executive Chef Dave Johnson. The event will take place on Tuesday September 29th from 5:00-7:00 pm at the community garden at 75 Laura Street in Providence’s Elmwood neighborhood
A dozen Elmwood neighborhood youth ages 9-14 participate in CWRI’s Garden Club under the supervision of teacher Gregg DeMaria. The children grow produce for their families and also sell vegetables and herbs to Local 121 restaurant in downtown Providence. Chef Dave Johnson will tour the garden and demonstrate how simple cooking techniques can bring vegetables straight from the garden to the dinner plate. This event will mark the end of the growing season for the Garden Club. Local families and other community members will join the club in celebrating their successes and enjoying expertly-prepared garden-fresh foods.
The Elmwood Youth Garden Club is made up of young residents of Community Works Rhode Island housing. For the last five years, the youth have been beautifying the neighborhood and producing bushels of fresh vegetables on two Laura Street gardens. In 2008, the gardeners began visiting Dave Johnson in his kitchen at Local 121 to learn about how professional kitchens work and to show off their produce. Their visits soon turned into weekly sales, generating hundreds of dollars a season to support the youth program and providing Local 121 with tomatoes, salad greens, herbs, cucumbers and other vegetables grown by the youth in their own neighborhood.
Carrie Marsh, Executive Director of Community Works said, “The Garden Club provides an opportunity for youth to engage in an enjoyable and rewarding activity, learn stewardship over their plots of land, and feel pride in their accomplishment – easily measured by their smiles as they show off their prize cucumbers. They are rewarded with the fun of the experience, the fruits of their labor, and also with the business partnership that they have with Local 121. We are grateful for this connection to Local 121, which understands the value of sustainable community-based agriculture – in this case raised by children in the heart of an urban neighborhood.”
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Executive Chef Dave Johnson of restaurant Local 121 will celebrate the end of CWRI’s successful summer gardening program for youth. Chef Johnson will demonstrate cooking with vegetables fresh from the garden for children and families at the community garden at 75 Laura Street on September 29th from 5:00-7:00pm. Teacher Gregg DeMaria runs the summer youth gardening program for CWRI. He works with a dozen children ages 9-14 to grow vegetables and herbs. The youth share the fruits of their labor with their families, and also sell the produce to Local 121 restaurant in downtown Providence.
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CWRI is thrilled to announce that The Steel Yard will be making benches, planters, and trashcans for the front of several main street properties in Providence. The Steel Yard collaborates with local artists, vendors and industry to produce functional public sculpture. This street furniture will be completed over the winter and placed in front of four properties on Broad Street in Providence.
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Teri Bernert has been hired as the Director of Real Estate. Teri was the Executive Director of a small CDC in Taunton called the Neighborhood Corporation, which recently successfully completed a $15 million historic brownfields mill restoration. In addition to her real estate skills, she brings strong land use planning skills to the position. She will start at CWRI the first week in October.
Malik Aziz has been hired as the Senior Project Manager. Malik has served in project management positions with CasCap, Urban Edge and Allston Brighton CDC. He will start on September 21.
CWRI welcomes these additions to the team!
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CWRI sells nine condominium homes to first time homebuyers who will help to stabilize the Elmwood neighborhood during an economic recession.
August 15, 2009, Providence, RI
Community Works Rhode Island (CWRI) is thrilled to announce that it has sold nine condominium units to first time homebuyers, since December 2008 in Providence’s Elmwood neighborhood. Seven of the homes are in the historic Parkis Avenue condominium development, and two are in the Early Street condominium development. Four remaining units are currently for sale.
The success of these sales is the combination of marketing by Joseph McCarthy of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, and a program by the City of Providence to provide qualified homebuyers with downpayment assistant grants of $10,000-20,000 through a shared equity program once the eligible buyer has completed a homeownership training class.
CWRI has redeveloped 18 properties on Parkis Avenue and has transformed a street of Victorian-era urban mansions into an award-winning new community with 90 rental and homeownership units for a mix of incomes. The Parkis Avenue redevelopment has won two awards from the Providence Preservation Society for neighborhood revitalization, and also the prestigious national MetLife Award in 2008 for a community safety initiative.
The Early Street condominiums include 10 income restricted units. Eight out of ten of the homes have been sold. This project is unique in that the property is owned as a land trust which keeps the property costs low for the condo owners, which is reflected in the pricing.
The Parkis and Early Street projects are among the first income restricted and mixed income condominium projects in Rhode Island to sell enough units to transition to associations that are managed by the owners. CWRI is currently working with a grant from Neighbor Works America to provide training to the Parkis condo owners to prepare them to take on the management of the association.
Carrie Marsh, Executive Director of Community Works Rhode Island, said “We are thrilled with the recent sales that allow the vision for creating a sustainable community to be realized, particularly during a difficult economy. The sale of these units brings owner occupants with energy and commitment to stabilize their neighborhood. CWRI looks forward to continuing to work with the new owners to create and enhance their community.”
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CWRI has a beautiful two family home for sale at fair market value of $289,900, listed with Jane Driver of Armory Properties.
This home is in the center of the Historic Homes of Parkis Avenue - an award winning transformation of a street of Victorian-era urban mansions in to 90 mixed income, rental and homeownership units.
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CWRI is currently utilizing $7 million in federal tax credit exchange funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, to develop 47 units of affordable rental units. Three historic homes on Parkis Avenue are being redeveloped in to 22 units which will be available in early 2010. An additional 25 new units will be developed on several sites along Broad Street in Providence.
Read a recent Providence Journal Article here
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Our website is now available in Spanish and English. Click on the box at the upper right hand corner to switch languages on the fly. This functionality is not available in the newsroom yet, but may be very shortly.
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