NEWPORT – Newport and Middletown are planning to use a $7.5 million federal grant to reinvigorate the Florence Gray Center and establish it further as a regional community hub.
“This is going to be a place where working families in Newport can come to get the support and resources they need to succeed, whether it is a parent coming to think about retraining for a future job in our emerging economy or a student coming here for afterschool programs, the idea is that it's a one-stop shop for families, ” Mayor Xay Khamsyvoravong said.
Initially, Newport and Middletown received a combined $2.9 million to renovate and expand the programming at Florence Gray Community Center, turning the Newport Housing Authority-owned facility into a regional Newport-Middletown community hub. That number has now jumped up to $7.5 million for the project, not including the additional funds set aside in the governor’s budget to operate the facility.
“For me, it’s all about this culture change that you’re creating where in every home, every day, learning matters,” Gov. Dan McKee said at a press conference. “If we can shift that culture into every home: every day, learning matters; and providing these types of facilities that can help make that happen – it won’t happen all overnight, but you will start developing this culture in the state, and it’s not even just the kids K-12, we want to make sure this penetrates to our younger adults and older adults…this is a game changer.”
The funds come from the Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund established by the American Rescue Plan Act and is administered by the U.S. Treasury. It was designed to address problems that occurred as a result of or were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with preference given to pre-approved project plans outlined by the Treasury. Rhode Island received over $112 million of the $9.8 billion made available across the states and territories to tackle two of the Treasury Department’s three pre-approved projects: Broadband accessibility and multi-purpose community centers.
The Florence Gray Center project is one of the first of 19 community center projects that have been approved to use these funds throughout the state, each of which had to get approval from the Treasury Department to receive funding. The additional $4.6 million allotted to the project came from funds that were supposed to go toward a proposed Rhode Island College project that did not meet the Treasury Department's specifications, McKee said.
It’s still too early to know what the building will look like and what programming it will have when all is said and done. Boys and Girls Club of Newport Executive Director Joe Pratt said the organization has just hired an architecture firm to take on the task and the organization and its partners will conduct public outreach to help decide what is needed at the center. The funding requirements specify that the funds be used on capital projects that provide educational services, job assistance and health monitoring to the community.
The Florence Gray Center already provides programming that meets the guidelines established by the federal government. It provides space for several community organizations dedicated to after-school education, including the Boys and Girls Club of Newport, which is serving as a major partner in the city’s participation with Learn365.
At the press conference, McKee emphasized how the state hopes investing in these community centers will further its education goals, noting that it is a part of the broader Learn365 Initiative designed to provide more out-of-school education opportunities with the hope to meet the McKee Administration’s goal to catch up to Massachusetts’ educational outcomes by 2030. He said the broader, statewide community center project will help meet other goals outlined in the Rhode Island 2030 plan, including the goal to raise per capita income by at least $20,000 by establishing more career development programming.
The federal government requires the program operations to be funded through the next five years, however, later on, funding will be assessed in terms of whether the programs have met specific outcomes.
In addition to those organizations inside of the Florence Gray Center, Newport is home to several community organizations that provide these kinds of services to the broader Newport County and Aquidneck Island region, including the Aquidneck Island Adult Learning Center, which offers GED class, certifications and English classes to community members, and the Newport Area Career and Technical Center, which provides classes based on non-academic career paths like Culinary, Construction, Cosmetology, and Automotive Technology. The latter two programs are currently in a state of semi-homelessness, however, as the new Rogers High School build design was not able to fit space for the programs as a result of inflation strains to the construction budget. The school building project, as well as the department itself, is still experiencing a funding gap of a couple million dollars, despite the city providing additional funds toward the project.
When asked why the Boys and Girls Club of Newport and the Florence Gray Center were chosen as the recipients of these funds, McKee said it came down to the restrictions placed on the funds by the federal government, and that it was up to the municipality to decide how to use those funds within those guardrails. Khamsyvoravong, one of the first to sign onto McKee’s Learn 365 Compact, said the city is trying to look beyond the public school system to help improve education outcomes.
“We are ending the business of thinking about education solely as our public schools and we’re looking at it holistically as an education system,” Khamsyvoravong said. “What we’re doing here… is being intentional about building continuity across the entirety of our education system.”
Middletown’s Community Relations Director Lori Turner noted the location so close to the border of Middletown and Newport made the Florence Gray Center ideal for this opportunity.
“It’s a significant opportunity for our residents and for our community,” Turner said. “All of our community partners that we’ve mentioned here, they work across the island, they work across the region, and so they’re used to working alongside our residents just as they work alongside Newport residents.”
This is a welcome investment to the Florence Gray Center, which was operating at a $40,000 deficit as recently as 2019. Since then, the Housing Authority has been applying for Community Block Grants to fulfill capital improvement projects.
“Having the community learning center located in the heart of an affordable housing community, particularly given that the poverty rate here in Newport’s North End is one-and-a-half times that of the city of Newport and three times that of Middletown, really allows us to make a difference here in the community,” Newport Housing Authority Executive Director Rhonda Mitchell said.
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