Rhode Island/ Dominican Republic

Dominican Rep.

Rhode Island

Gilbert Stuart Middle School

Teacher: Mrs. Ribezzo

Period 2

Does the closing of the Knight Memorial Library affect the West End community?

188 Princeton Ave. Providence, RI 02907

The problem

Adriana Alvayero Tara Walton Mel Miller Fernando Ruiz Rafael Ramirez Jose Santos

The action Plan

Andrea Lopez Julissa Taymes Curtis Johns Kevin Williams Sophia Khun Emily Bunreath

Class Policy

Marlene Castillo Genesis Perez Oluseyi Olufowboi Marcelo Lopez Sam Roberson Christopher De la Rosa

Alternative policies

Gessy Then Marco Gamez Amanda Dee Alexandra Serrano Marielle Tardy Ansy Hertilien

Our West End community is a place where they provide child care programs, youth programs, and after school programs. The West End is Providence’s largest neighborhood and is located in the southwestern quadrant of the city. Today the borders of the West End are Westminster Street to the north, Elmwood Avenue to the east, Huntington Avenue to the south, and the railroad to the west. According to the 1990 census, 14,828 people resided in the West End. One in the three residents are Hispanic, about 30percent are African American, and 14 percent are Asian, making the West End one of the city’s most diverse neighborhoods.

The State house

The Cranston Armory

Water place Park

The West End Neighborhood

Downtown Providence

How will the closing of the Knight Memorial Library affect the West End community?

Alternative Policy# 1:

Appointing more members to the Board of Trustees.

The city of Providence would favor this policy. We think that we should appoint more members to the Board of Trustees because then it would be more accurate input on what is best for our community on what to spend the money on.

Alternative Policy #2

Getting more donations from private organizations.

We think that there should be more private organizations to give libraries donations, because then there is a greater chance that some of our local libraries will stay open like our Knight Memorial library.

Alternative Policy #3

Holding fundraisers every other Friday.

We feel that it would be best for our local library to hold fundraisers such as; raffle tickets, programs, etc to raise money and attract people’s attention to be aware of Knight Memorial Library.

Our class policy is to try and get more donations from private organizations to help keep out library open.

We chose policy #2 because we think that it is something that can be easily. We also chose policy#2 because we think that we can get a lot of donations from different people especially people who want to keep the library open

Disadvantages of policy #1

There might not be enough representatives to appoint the Board of Trustees.

What if the representatives don’t want to help the Board of Trustees teach other people how to spend their money the right way?

Maybe the Board of Trustees doesn’t want people to know how they spend money. That way they get more money.

Disadvantages of policy #3

People might not want to help raise money for the libraries.

Maybe no one will help get money to provide programs.

Some people don’t use the library, so why would the providers raise money to keep it open?

Some people might not care if the library closes.

Our action plan is to write letters to the President, Senator Lincoln Chafee, the mayor David N. Cicilline, and the superintendent of the Providence Public Schools, Doctor D. Evans. We wrote letters explaining what we were doing and how we need their help.

Do you think closing Knight Memorial library will affect the

West End community?

50

11

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Yes No

61 People Interviewed

When we started working on the class project, we didn’t know what problem to investigate. After looking through several newspaper articles, we found a problem that would affect our community. The closing of the Knight Memorial will definitely affect our neighborhood. We learned that the Knight Memorial library is a private organization that is also subsidized by the city of Providence. We also learned that if we know our rights and obligations as a citizen we can take an active part in our government.