Excellent. Good evening. I would like to call the committee on health opportunity prosperity and education board. Madam clerk, please hold the role. Chairman Juan Pachado?
chairwoman Shelly Peterson? Aye. Consulate Sunderbull? Present. Consulate Justin Boyes is not present.
We have four present, one absent. We have a warm.
Thank you very much. Just wanted to welcome everyone. Good evening. Today, we have before us on the agenda a resolution supporting the memorandum of understanding of the province after school alliance. And then we'll have a discussion relative to the city and the program in support of the city of Providence and PPSD, and then for us to have a a brief discussion on any thoughts and policies or partnership that that we would like to get from in the near future and talk a little bit about education and other other issues that we see under the the committee.
So that way, we can start looking at some recommendations in in in the field of economics, health, education, social programs. And so that said, I also want to make a note that our chief of staff for June Rose is with us along with Aaron.
Along with Aaron Easter Garner, who's deputy chief of staff. Also, Rosa Arias Perry from our city serviceman. And thank you to the clerks and your. So the first item on the agenda we'll have is the resolution supporting the memorandum of understanding of the province of the school alliance. Mike, you will be presenting the the And possible.
Make sure you swear my hand. Sweetheart.
We believe you're It is customary that we swear in all who've been coming for us.
Can you raise your right hand? You swear on the penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Please state your name and title for the record, please.
Yeah. We're obviously the director of the. Thank you.
If you could please speak up too. One, we would like to meet you so that we can see it online, and then maybe those of us who want maybe a little bit of out of hearing. So welcome, Anne. Thank you. I'm actually gonna turn right over to Anne.
She's the expert on on the contract and on what cost it does per city. So if it's okay, Karen, I'd like to turn it over. Welcome, Anne.
Thank you. Thank you. So a little bit of context for those who are less familiar with Plaza. We are a twenty year old organization that was founded in 2004 as a meant to be an intermediary organization that helps support access to and and participation in high quality out of school time learning opportunities. We were designed to live outside of city government and to serve as an intermediary between the city of Providence, Providence Schools, Rhode Island Department of Education, and the large number of, really amazing good survey organizations in the community with a goal of creating systems and structures to make it easier for those organizations to come in and and reach young people without having to deal with all of the logistics and challenges and barriers that can lead to that and also make it easier for young people to access these really high quality programs at no charge to that.
And so that's kind of where PASA has has fallen over the over the last twenty years. Our our work has expanded and grown. We serve approximately 1,300 Providence students in middle and high school ages every year and work with you know, depending on your, you know, 60 to 70 community organizations that provide direct services to young people in the in the city. In 2010, the Providence After School Alliance entered into an MOU with the city of Providence that basically laid out the charge that possibly serve as the city's intermediary for these goals. It does not the MOU runs on five year cycles.
It does not, in any way, guarantee any type of payment or money. It's really about an alignment of vision and opportunity for Providence youth. It sets up ways of collaborating and working together, you know, figuring out how we are going to ensure that there are buildings that are accessible that we can use for for operation of programs and how we're going to, you know, collaborate and kind of ensure the operations and the systems behind it. The city doesn't have the staff or the capacity to take on a citywide approach to out of school time learning, and and that was why it actually was under Mayor Sicilini when it was it was created at that time with the goal of having an organization that should be that focus on that and work on in collaboration with the city but outside the city. Thank you.
Where are you located, sir? Administrative officers are on Dallas Street in the Rising Sunmass.
And how many employees do you
We have 15 full time employees and approximately 10 or 10 employees at this time.
Is approximately $2.3400000 dollars.
Any other question? Cancel over the second page.
Thank you. Thank you for being here.
Really appreciate it. How are you funded?
Our largest source of funds come from the Ride of Education in the form of twenty first Century Community Learning Center grants. We have some additional funds from RI through AllQuest Network. We do have a grant at the Center of Providence. We have a grant with Rhode Island Foundation and a, you know, a kind of wide number of other local and regional private, family, and corporate foundations. There is independent fundraising, individual giving, all of that fun stuff.
And in this fiscal year in particular, we we still have some remaining funds from a federal earmark that we received from through that came to the US Department of Education a couple of years ago, and this will be the last year fiscal year that we have for that those funds as well.
have Yes. Can't pronounce my last name. Can you just share
Can we, can we share any, changes that have maybe been made between this MOU and the last five years?
There's there are no changes to the exception of, of some of the, final exhibits that list what specific schools exist in PTSD or, like, what are the locations of the rec centers in the in the city. Right? Like, the list of our staff members, the content of the actual MOU and the agreements, none of that has changed.
Oh, cool. Okay. Yes. And thank you
for your amazing work. You do such good Thank you.
Thanks, Marie. Go Sanchez. Thank you, mister chair. That's amazing. Great.
Thank you so much for being here and all the work that you do. Just understanding exactly, like, the process. Like, from my understanding, do you guys do any, like, direct programming yourselves? Or
So we oversee program sites. So we have staff who are there managing the logistics and operations of an after school program at a particular middle school or high school. And so we have staff who are doing direct service in that way, but the vast majority of the program activities that young people are participating in are are offered through community partners. So we will contract with organizations like and basketball and beat the streets wrestling. They are the actual you know, they're running most of the programs with our staff kind of doing some additional things, you know, on top of that.
In our high school programs, for example, we would be, you know, we might be the ones taking students on, college tours and college visits or running a, a resident building day or something a little bit more one off type activities.
Thank you. And in the way you, like, find those community partners, are you, like, constantly, like, searching or folks, like, coming to you? Like, say, like, someone wants to teach golf lessons. Like, can they, like, come to you and you can try to get them connected? Yes.
