The Scoop

IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT

A high school food truck program gives students real-world, hands-on experience

The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) is bringing learning to the streets with their newly launched Menu for Success. Through the grant program, 13 area high schools will be able to fund food trucks that students will design and operate, all while developing skills in entrepreneurship, culinary arts, automotive learning, graphic design, and more.

“As Rhode Island rebuilds and reimagines its education system, RIDE is thinking outside of the box,” says Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green. “Through Menu for Success, we will provide our students with real-life experience in entrepreneurship, management, and accounting, sharpen their culinary skills and spark their creativity.”

Thirteen local education agencies (LEAs) have committed to participate in the initiative: Central Falls, Chariho, Cranston, Coventry, Davies Career & Technical High School, East Providence, Lincoln, Newport, Pawtucket, Providence, Warwick, Westerly, and Woonsocket.

A Taste Of The Real World

The goal of Menu for Success is to move learning beyond the classroom and into the community, where students can gain practical real-world experience that will aid in their future careers. As Lamel Moore, community connections and partnership liaison for the Pawtucket School Department, explains, “We want to make this the best and most outstanding learning experience that it can be. Students will have the opportunity to participate both inside and outside of the classroom. That is a great learning experience. It can be invaluable.”

“It’s not just culinary classes,” Moore adds. Schools can determine how to incorporate the food truck development into their curriculum. In East Providence, for example, Automotive Technology Program students will work on fixing and maintaining the trucks as part of their regular course studies. “Students from every area of focus can be involved. Graphic design students can map out the look of the trucks. Finance students can be involved from a business sense. The scope and breadth of what these students can do is outstanding. It really is unlimited.”

An Investment For The Future

The $1.6 million cost of the statewide program includes approximately $125,000 toward each truck, purchased through a joint request for proposals, plus additional support and resources provided by RIDE. Participating schools are expected to maintain the custom-fitted food trucks, which are expected to arrive this spring.

The program design was inspired by Rhode Island’s reputation as a food tourism destination, with the popularity of food trucks on the rise worldwide. Students will have the chance to be part of that exciting industry trend. At William M. Davies, Jr. Career and Technical High School in Lincoln, director Mary Watkins can’t wait to get the program up and running. “Food trucks are a fantastic small business and culinary learning opportunity, and – at Davies especially – a food truck will provide a great all-hands-on-deck project for students in our culinary, electrical, automotive, and graphics technical programs.”

Currently, each LEA is evaluating their options, from truck size to deciding on a trailer or a full-service vehicle, along with what kind of cooking equipment will go inside – a food truck business designed for baking, for instance, will look different than one serving hot wings. In January, representatives from each of the participating organizations met at the Cranston Area Career and Technical

Center to review their options and tour two successful and well-known local food trucks: Nanu Burmese Fusion and Food Vibes.

Opening Doors For Every Student

Through industry exposure, RIDE’s Menu for Success initiative aims to open doors for students of color and increase the number who graduate with a defined plan for continued success. Although Rhode Island’s food sector accounts for countless jobs and billions of dollars in sales annually, not everyone has historically been invited to the table. The state lags far behind in creating opportunities to own and operate food businesses for people of color, who make up only 2 percent of Rhode Island’s 14,000 restaurants. This program hopes to address that issue.

The big picture, as Moore explains, is “having students perform at the highest level in ways that will make them proud and get the most out of them as well. These students will be exposed to countless opportunities. This can be the pipeline for so many outstanding experiences.”

RIDE plans to hold an event October 21, 2023 at Chase Farm in Lincoln, bringing together all 13 food trucks to celebrate the culinary arts in Rhode Island. For more information on the program, visit RIDE.RIgov.

Hoop Dreams

How the URI Women’s Basketball Coach created a championship culture

University

of

Rhode Island

Women’s Basketball Head Coach Tammi Reiss is her team’s biggest booster. Hired in 2019, Reiss turned the team from a struggling program into a league leader in just a couple of years. After a 22-win season in 2021-2022, her Lady Rams were undefeated in conference play this year, and at press time, on track for a postseason appearance.

Her passion for the sport is evident. Reiss, a former WNBA player (drafted fifth overall by the Utah Starzz in 1997) and All-American at the University of Virginia, fell in love with the game at a young age. “The reason I coach is because I’ve had unbelievable mentors,” she explains. “Every one of my experiences in basketball has brought me nothing but love and joy. I picked up a basketball in the 5th grade and started playing competitively, training with a semi-pro basketball player who worked with me from the day I picked up the ball till the day I left the WNBA.”

College athletics have come a long way since Reiss played in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, particularly women’s sports. “Back then we were still fighting for equality; it was relatively early in Title 9. Women’s basketball was just grabbing a foothold – there was no television coverage, and no technology. There was no entitlement back then; we were trying to earn everything we got. There were no trainers, no air conditioned gyms. We played outside on the black top under the lights until it was dark.”

After several years in the pros, the New York native began her coaching career with the Utah Starzz, later moving to several colleges before coming to URI. In addition to winning games, Reiss has worked hard to build a fan base, increase media coverage, and encourage supporters, particularly young women, to attend games.

How did she build a championship culture at URI, a program that hadn’t seen much success until she arrived? “It’s knowing what your morality and values system is, what you want it to be,” she says. “I came from winning programs and had a lot of success. I took the best ideas of what winners do on a consistent basis from my mentors. That involves discipline and accountability. They are probably the two hardest words to stick to, especially when winning and losing is involved.”

Coming off several losing seasons, recruiting quality players was not an easy task when Reiss arrived in 2019. “No kid in the United States wants to come to a loser,” she explains. “When you’re looking at a rebuild job, you got to have a game plan.” With help from Associate Coach Adeniyi Amadou, originally from Paris, France, Reiss set out to build a team around a core of international athletes. The strategy worked –the Rams quickly became competitive with a mix of players from France, Israel, Estonia, and the United States. “We sprinkled in a couple of special American kids who wanted to be builders. Now we sell that we’re a winner,” says Reiss. “We’re competitive in A-10 championships, we have a practice facility, we charter flights. Our budget is in the top three in the league. We’re in a beautiful coastal community.”

Another marker of her success – many of her former players now play professionally. “All five of our kids who graduated last year are playing pro in Europe,” she explains. “Some are in the top Euro league, some are making $150,000 a year; these are lucrative careers. We develop them to become pros. That’s what I’m most proud of, helping them to fulfill their dream.”

Fight for Public Access to Westerly Beach Moves One Step Forward

A legal battle over a contested right-of-way to the beach in Westerly has become a flashpoint in the debate over shoreline access

A panel from the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council met Tuesday [January 24] to discuss its review of the potential access point, which would open up a nearly two-mile barrier beach that’s currently blocked off to the general public. Afternoon host Dave Fallon spoke with South County Bureau Reporter Alex Nunes about the meeting and what’s next. This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

DAVE FALLON: The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) Rightsof-Way Subcommittee met about this disputed right-of-way. It’s called the Spring Avenue Extension, it’s located in the Weekapaug section of Westerly. So what has happened?

ALEX NUNES: In the meeting, the CRMC’s attorney, Anthony DeSisto, did most of the talking. Westerly Town Council sent this to CRMC a little over two years ago, and people have been eager to hear from CRMC. So it really seemed like he was establishing the tone of, this is our top priority right now for the Rightsof-Way Subcommittee, we’re going to be looking into this, we’ve gotten a lot of submissions already on this. It is a contested right-of-way. There’s been some 500 pages of submissions from attorneys sent already. So he basically said, I’ll be going through that, synthesizing it, giving you my thoughts on it, and then we’ll be scheduling public hearings on this.

FALLON: So there is disagreement about whether this right-of-way is actually public or not. Let’s run down the disagreements and who’s disagreeing about what exactly.

NUNES: So this barrier beach, it’s in the Weekapaug section of Westerly within the bounds of the Weekapaug Fire District, which is a state-chartered fire district. It doesn’t have a fire department, its duties are more around managing land and managing beaches. And this fire district says that it’s the rightful owner of this right-of-way, that it had belonged to a real estate company that they acquired and then dissolved. They don’t want it open. Right now it’s fenced off and there’s vegetation there. And they intend to keep it that way. Members of the public, beachgoers who want to be able to use this area and can’t right now, they think that it is public. People used it a long time ago. There wasn’t a problem accessing it. They think that photos, deeds, plat maps, postcards all demonstrate that this was meant to be a public right-of-way. A retired Assistant Attorney General for Rhode Island, Michael Rubin, has gotten involved in this case on a pro bono level. There’s an attorney in Connecticut named Anthony Palazzolo, who is always sure to tell people he’s not a licensed attorney in Rhode Island. He’s representing himself, but he has a lot of skill in this area and has done a lot of research and submitted to CRMC as well. The attorney general of Rhode Island has weighed in, and is urging CRMC to designate this right-of-way public and the nonprofit Save the Bay has also signaled its support for making this a[n] open public right-of-way. So it’s really that group versus the Weekapaug Fire District.

FALLON: Alex, it’s been a lot of attention with this case. Why so? Why this specific right-of-way issue? How does this case relate in general to shoreline access issues?

NUNES: Well, there’s a couple of reasons why people really care about this particular rightof-way. It’s right at the beginning of this barrier beach, the Quonochontaug Barrier Beach, which is 1.7 miles. There’s currently no designated public access point there across, you know, to get to this 1.7-mile barrier beach. So by comparison, I was looking at some numbers that I have – Misquamicut State Beach is 0.61 miles; Scarborough State Beach is 0.87 [miles]; Roger Wheeler State Beach in Narragansett, 0.41 [miles]. So all those state saltwater beaches combined are about the same length as this barrier beach. So people really feel like, we want to get there, we want to be able to access it in the summer, and this is really the best opportunity. There’s also this underlying tension, this bigger picture to it where people feel like, there’s this general issue in Rhode Island where people who live in the shoreline communities who have bought very expensive homes in these areas, that they’ve been able to privatize beaches and take control of them, and block everyone else out. So people are really adamant in that sense, that they want to get access. And this is sort of, this particular right-of-way is emblematic of that larger issue.

FALLON: So it’s a prime piece of real estate, as far as public access and also real estate in general, right?

NUNES: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I think this area is particularly important to the property owners in the Weekapaug Fire District in the sense that, if you have access to a 1.7-mile stretch of barrier beach that is exclusive to you or whoever you let go there, that’s pretty important for your property values. So they have incentive to keep this closed off – and, they think, the right to do it, too.

FALLON: What’s it like to go down there and visit? And how do things play out when you visit?

NUNES: So if you go this time of year, you won’t have any problems. You can go out there and walk during the winter. But if you go there during the summer, it can be pretty ugly scenes where people get turned away, can get into arguments. People say that, you know, the security guards can be aggressive with them, property owners in that area will, some people say, chase them down and make them get out of there. I’ve been there a couple of times for reporting where I was told, just turn around my car and get out of there, you’re not welcome there. Sometimes shoreline access advocates will go there with video cameras and try to videotape their experience. And then the property owners will videotape them back, sometimes the police get called. So it’s a pretty, pretty tense place to be if someone is there who wants to access who they are trying to block.

FALLON: Any sense, with all of this legal back and forth, about how long it’s going to take to resolve this issue?

NUNES: I would say it’s still at least months away. CRMC’s attorney [on Tuesday] was saying that he wants this to get moving along in the first half of this year. And he was speaking in the sense that that would actually be almost like an expedited path for it. There’s just so much evidence to go through – maps and deeds going back over 100 years. So –and because of all the public attention that’s on this, you know, from access advocates to media attention – I think they really want to do it right and do a thorough job. And the process would be that the Rights-of-Way Subcommittee would review it and make a recommendation for designation for it to be public to the full CRMC Council, and then they would have to make the final decision.

Rhody Pets of the Month

Looking to welcome a new furry friend into your home? Adopt, don’t shop! Shelters around South County and the state have dogs and cats ready to find their forever homes. Here are three pets ready to meet you, or reach out to the shelters to learn about even more adoptees.

If you have been thinking of adopting or if you know of an animal in need, please contact Karen directly at animaltalk1920@gmail.com.

ARNOLD

Calling all hound lovers – Arnold’s contagious smile, golden eyes, and long legs are just a few of his best traits! This two-year-old hound mix is a stunner with a white-and-tan coat, and his zest for life will keep you on your toes. If you like going on long walks and exploring new hiking trails, Arnold is the pup for you. In true hound fashion, he’s very smart and likes to be busy, so a fenced-in yard would be best. Once he’s enjoyed playtime, he’ll happily cozy up with you.

Heart of RI Animal Rescue

401-467-3670

HeartOfRI.org

JOHNNY

With a penchant for soaking up the sun, Johnny would love to spend his days by the warmest window in a home he can call his own. This handsome green-eyed feline with a white coat and tabby markings is about eight-to-ten years old and ready to be your furever companion. If you’ve been searching for a new best friend and want to open your heart and home to a kitty in need, schedule a visit to meet Johnny.

Exeter Animal Shelter

401-294-2754

ROUX

Just look at that smile! Roux is a young shepherd mix with a sweet temperament. Just over a year old, he still brings the puppy energy; he’s also smart, eager to learn, and aims to please. Roux can be shy around strangers, but once he’s comfortable, you’ll see his full personality, and loyalty. Already have a dog? Roux is a social pup and might be a perfect new best friend to your current canine companion.

Save One Soul Animal Rescue League

By appointment only: info@sosarl.org SOSARL.org

The Future is Solitaire

Local couple develops a one-of-a-kind card game inspired by Armenian traditions

What do Armenian coffee grounds and strategy card gameplay have in common?

Not much before Dave Davignon and Armine Tahmassian of Mek Mek Games put their brains together to weave a delightfully intricate and interactive narrative of fortune telling and 14th century Persian poetry. The Cranston couple has been developing Hoki, a solitaire game that incorporates both strategy and luck, for the past four years – and their followers recently donated the funds needed to make it a reality. Named after the Armenian word for “soul,” Hoki isn’t your ordinary deck of cards. An optometrist by day, visual artist Tahmassian hand-drew a range of imagery in black ink influenced by her Armenian culture. She then digitally colored each miniature canvas to form the foundation of the inventive solitaire experience.

“In Hoki, the pictures in each card have symbols that point to different fortunes,” explains Davignon. “If you clear the deck, you will receive a fortune and guidance.” The game is infused with traditions ranging from Armenian coffee cup reading to Klondike solitaire, in which “you can put something in your mind as you play, and if you win, that thing will come true. This is called ‘Opening your Fate.’”

Until you open the box and begin to play, Hoki is intentionally mysterious. “The story is designed to reveal strategies in an entertaining way and help folks realize them on their own,” says Davignon. “We’ve never encountered a game that has room for something like this and we couldn’t help but build on it.” A musician and video editor and producer, Davignon offers a glimpse of the mood with a video on their website of a shrouded woman tempting the viewer with the promise of becoming a seer.

Many mechanics of the game will be familiar to the avid tabletop enthusiast – yet not intimidating to novice players. Davignon explains, “It’s a non-builder style solitaire game like Accordion, which is based on matching and other choices rather than sequencing the cards by rank. One game of Hoki takes five minutes. You have to make the right choices to increase your chances of discarding every card in the deck.”

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Here’s the fun part for gaming junkies: Hoki uses a legacy system. “Each time you win, your deck transforms a bit,” says Davignon, “until finally you transform your whole deck and unlock a book that gives you a fortune every time you win. You will have become a ‘Seer’ and can forever use the game to tell your fortune!”

If strategy isn’t your forte, there’s still a chance you can win simply by making lucky choices, but the duo tweaked traditional solitaire gameplay somewhat to stack the statistics in favor of those who give it a little thought. But Hoki doesn’t aim to ostracize – the “teacher” character in the game makes for a nice foray into modern tabletop gaming and legacy systems for the uninitiated. “Folks who haven’t played many games don’t know what this experience is like. This was partially our mission, to show this to a wider audience,” says Davignon.

For Davignon and Tahmassian, Hoki has been an opportunity to flex their skills and develop new ones in the creative sphere.

“Reflecting back is almost like seeing the curvature of the earth,” relays Davignon.

“You know it is huge but the scale is too big to comprehend when you’re close to it.” And the fortunes are in their favor, with production on the horizon. HokiSolitaire.com.

Funky Bijoux Gift Shop

We’re on the hunt for Rhody Gems! Every neighborhood has that secret, hidden, cool and unusual, or hole-in-the-wall spot that locals love. Email or tag us on social media using #RhodyGem to suggest yours, and we might just feature it!

What it is:

A home-based business selling handcrafted goods made from local beach finds.

Where to find it:

Look for a green Victorian cottage in the center of Conimicut Village, Warwick, two doors from the library branch and across the street from the backyard of Woodbury Union Church. Says owner Patty Hopkinson, “You can’t miss my hand-crafted signs on the porch and street on weekends!”

What makes it a Rhody Gem?

If you’re looking for accents to give your home or garden a seaside vibe, it doesn’t get more authentic than Funky Bijoux. Hopkinson, a regular vendor at craft shows, beachcombs the nearby shore searching for driftwood, shells, and seaglass to construct mobiles, frames, and wall hangings. “My shop is in a renovated sleeping porch at the back of my little Victorian cottage – it is actually the same size as a typical show booth! I pick all my beach findings locally, basically from the Narragansett Bay and other nearby beaches. Each piece, including driftwood, is cleaned and sanitized before I start working with it. I typically recite to my customers: no bugs, worms, or smell, especially in the wood!” Open most Saturdays and Sundays from 11am-2pm (when Hopkinson isn’t selling at a show), by chance or appointment.

Funky Bijoux

43 Beach Avenue, Conimicut Village, Warwick Facebook: FunkyBijouxRI, @funky_bijoux_ri