We had a tremendous success for our Legends for Literacy Gala on Tuesday night. The room was beautifully decorated with festive fall centerpieces and sunflower balloons! Thank you to Wendy Marcus and her committee. There were 19 raffle items generously donated by Richard Leone, Mary Cullen, Jim and Mary Gilcreast, Kris David, Gabriella David Carlino, The Players, Joe Andruzzi Foundation, Geoff Gaunt, Art Norwalk, and Rob Black. Thank you to Jim Gilcreast, Kris David and Mary Cullen for their help.
Pete Brock masterfully stepped in as our MC for the evening! Thank you, Pete.
President Holly welcomed everyone and recognized George Babcock for his work in creating a Childhood Literacy Initiative and gave a special thanks to co-Chairs, Susan Kearney-Kaplan and Pete Brock and all the committee chairs.
She introduced our first guest, Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee, who praised our club with our commitment to literacy. He presented a citation for our Rotary Club of Providence as well as a citation for Malcolm Mitchell. We presented Governor McKee with a signed copy of Malcolm’s new book.
President Holly then introduced Rhode Island Department of Education Commissioner, Angelica Infante-Green who spoke about the struggles of the Providence Schools and her major efforts to improve K-12 Education throughout the state. She was also presented with a signed copy of Malcolm’s Book.
Past President and Chair of the Childhood Literacy Initiative, Art Norwalk eloquently gave a history of our club’s literacy projects. He introduced our Honorary Chair, Arthur Robbins who was presented with our Lifetime Education Achievement Award. Arthur spoke about his efforts in improving education for our youth and his part in creating the first Charter School in Rhode Island.
A fabulous video of Malcolm Mitchell’s Reading Rally at the Harry Kizirian School was shown! Every child was given a copy of Malcolm’s book, My Very Favorite Book in the Whole Wide World.
Pete Brock led the countdown to raise funds for bringing books to classrooms with Library of 60 books to each classroom starting at $2000 for 10 classrooms down to $200 for one classroom.
Malcolm Mitchell who received our Rotary Literacy Award in 2019 spoke about his struggles as he grew up in poverty in Georgia, his reading challenges, his career playing football for New England Patriots, and his new career as a children’s author.
Pete Brock introduced Susan Kearney-Kaplan who presented the Richard A. Kaplan Partnership Award between Providence Rotary and the Providence Schools to the Superintendent, Dr. Javier Montanez who talked about his struggles with poverty and homelessness and how he beat all odds and received his GED and decades later his Masters of education from Rhode Island College, Masters of Education from Johnson and Wales and doctorate and superintendent’s Certification. He was also given an autographed copy of Malcolm’s book.
A special thank you to Mary Cullen who helped bring in the Commissioner and Superintendent.
The Live auction was presented by Pete Brock. Thank you for the 5 auction items, Providence Renaissance donated by Holly Applegate and Jim Gilcreast, Newport Experience, donated by Susan Kearney, Russell Morin’s Thanksgiving dinner for 8, A night out to the Theatre donated by Susan Kearney, and Miami in January with tickets to New England Patriots vs Miami Dolphins.
The money raised will be announced soon, but our sponsorship total exceeded 2019 with a total and counting, $62,000.
Congratulations to everyone!
Club Information
Tuesdays at 11:45 AM
Providence Marriott
1 Orms Street
Providence, RI 02904 United States of America
Lunch is served at 11:45 AM; meeting begins at noon.