Cranston awarded $400K to improve 'social cohesion'

Cranston community leaders came together last Thursday at one of the city’s central locations, the Pastore Center on Gansett Avenue, for some significant news.

The Boston Federal Reserve’s Working Cities Challenge last week awarded a $400,000 grant to three cities, Cranston being one of them, to “support programs designed to spur workforce development and job creation among low- and moderate-income residents.” It also focuses on “social cohesion,” a central tenet of Cranston’s plan for the grant.

Mayor Allan W. Fung attended and spoke about his commitment to unifying the east and west sides of Cranston. What once originated as a sports rivalry evolved into more of a socioeconomic and demographic split.

“I’ve had the privilege to be mayor for eight years now, and we’ve seen our city grow,” Fung said. “With that growth, we’re seeing a lot more of the demographic changes, especially among the diverse population and minority community. We as leaders in our receptive organizations are here to meet those challenges, meet those needs and provide those services, and we could not have done it without your help.”

The mayor joined a roundtable of community members, including Cranston’s Comprehensive Community Action Program President and CEO Joanne McGunagle and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren. Economic Development Director Larry DiBona and Libraries Director Ed Garcia joined a group of about 20 people to discuss bringing unity to Cranston through community engagement.

As the advisory board, a committee known as One Cranston, came together to discuss what the grant money could be used for, McGunagle noticed similarities in the talking points.

“We started talking about the same thing but coming from very different perspectives,” McGunagle said. “We either work in Cranston, live in Cranston or both, and we were taking about a lack of cohesion in our city, and we asked if this was something we really wanted to take on.”

It was determined to be a worthy cause, so a couple of community activities helped gauge what the city of Cranston wanted. After a survey was distributed, a SpeakOut event was held at Bain Middle School, a stone’s throw from the Pastore Center, to reach out to the city and get a sense of what projects residents would support to bring the city closer together.

There were One Cranston boards situated all over and those who attended were provided stickers to answer whatever question was posed. One, for example, asked what neighborhood improvement endeavors a person and their neighbors would most likely back. “Community/park clean up” received the most stickers, though “school improvement” and “neighborhood beautification” weren’t far behind.

Other boards showed that an overwhelming majority of Cranston residents find out about job opportunities and youth programs through the Internet. Of the 33 surveyed on where they discover job opportunities, 22 said they were most likely to find one online.

The SpeakOut led to the offshoot of other potential ideas, as board member and Edgewood resident Bert Cooper explained.

“My takeaway from that is people are hungry to get involved in neighborhoods, and beyond that they're interested in working to improve their schools,” Cooper said. “Hosting block parties, which is a great opportunity to bring people together, tree planting was a big issue.”

Fung added that transforming the Rolfe Square area near City Hall, which is home to a wide array of diverse businesses, into a cultural center. Most notably is Mosaic, which has helped bring a taste for Middle Eastern cuisine into the community.

His vision for what Rolfe Square could be included bringing residents from all across Cranston into the streets to interact with one another in a block party-type environment with either food trucks or assortment of restaurants to “unite the community.” In his eyes, it could be Cranston’s form of Central Park.

“Rolfe Square was the area people used to congregate, but over time a society changed and neighborhoods changed it has evolved in a different way where there’s a lot of diversity growing into the neighborhood,” Fung said. “I was hoping to create a central area where people throughout the city could come and congregate and have the neighborhoods grow into that area, our little international place.”

The celebration didn’t stop there. Delegations from all three winning cities came together at the Providence Public Library on Friday to commemorate the occasion. Gov. Gina Raimondo offered her congratulations as well.

“Great things can happen when Rhode Islanders work together,” Gov. Raimondo said in a statement. “I am incredibly proud of our Rhode Island Working Cities applicants, who spent months collaborating on their pans to improve their communities, and look forward to seeing the results of their hard work.”