Together RI

Pam Johnston has devoted her career to journalism- she started as a producer at TV stations in places like Maine and North Carolina, and went on to oversee news programming at WGBH in Boston. And when Rhode Island PBS and the Public's Radio merged together, she became the President and CEO of the new entity, Ocean State Media. Pam joins host David Cicilline to talk about her vision for public media and the state of journalism here in Rhode Island.Learn more about the Rhode Island Foundation at https://rifoundation.org/.

If you're a young person or a parent of a young person, you may be facing the challenge of how to pay for college.That's why the Rhode Island Foundation, in partnership with dozens of individual and organizational donors,  awards more than four million dollars in scholarships to help students cover the cost of tuition and room and board. The funds help everyone from middle schoolers to graduate students achieve their dreams. This summer, we brought all of our scholars together for a celebration. Here are some of their stories. Learn more about the Rhode Island Foundation at https://rifoundation.org/.  

After working in the Newport schools for more than 15 years, Rebekah Gomez noticed a serious problem: Aquidneck Island was woefully unprepared to serve its Spanish-speaking residents. So, in 2019, she joined three other women to create Conexion Latina Newport, a non-profit devoted to making city and local services more accessible for the Hispanic community. She joins host David Cicilline to talk about their mission to help Spanish speakers find help, build skills, and feel connected. Learn more about the Rhode Island Foundation at rifoundation.org  

Earlier this year, we hosted a panel discussion with  three Rhode Island Foundation grantees  who are bringing people together through the power of the arts. The panel featured Carly Callahan, the executive director of The United Theatre in Westerly,  Adrienne Gagnon, the co-founder and executive director of DownCity Design, and  Valerie Tutson, the executive director of the Rhode Island Black Storytellers.  Micah Salkind, the director of Civic and Cultural Life at the Rhode Island Foundation, moderated the discussion. This is a lightly edited recording of their conversation. Learn more about the Rhode Island Foundation at rifoundation.org/  

Rhode Island listeners will know Tom Brad, the education leader, not the football player, from when he was our Providence school superintendent from 2008 to 2011. After leaving Providence, he became the leader of the Department of Defense Education Activity, or DoDEA, a network of domestic and international schools for the children of service members. During his 10 years there, DoDEA became first in the nation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.He joins David Cicilline to talk about what led to that success, and discuss the Rhode Island Foundation's initiative to overhaul the state's school funding formula. Learn more about the Rhode Island Foundation at https://rifoundation.org/.