Announcing the 2021 Creative and Safe Streets Mini-Grants!

^ above, Community Angels’ Earth Day Community Cleanup on Broad Street, one of the 2021 Mini-Grant recipients

The Providence Streets Coalition is proud and excited to be awarding a series of mini-grants to support community-led initiatives designed to promote better street safety, more inclusive transportation options, and creative activation of public spaces in neighborhoods across Providence.

“RILA’s Museo del Barrio was born to draw attention to La Calle Broa’ (Broad Street), help businesses thrive, enable communities to tell their stories with local artists, give Latinx artists a platform to express themselves, and to allow Providence’s prominent Latino neighborhood and community be a place where we feel safe and inspired,” says Marta V. Martinez, director of Rhode Island Latino Arts, one of the grant recipients that will create sidewalk murals and neighborhood walking tours of the Broad Street area.

In all, the Coalition is distributing $35,000 to nineteen projects across the Capital City, including a permanent home for bicycle programs in Roger Williams Park with the MET High School, sidewalk murals and neighborhood tours of South Providence with Rhode Island Latino Arts, a skating program focused on mobility justice with Youth in Action, and support for Family Service of Rhode Island’s Walking School Bus program which will be expanding to four elementary schools next year.

“About the time Providence began working on increasing bike infrastructure and improving rider safety was the time we started planning for a class that, rather than meeting in a traditional school setting, would meet in one of the flagship parks in our state and take advantage of all of the opportunities offered in the outdoors,” says Ed Raff, Quantitative Reasoning Specialist and director of the Full Cycle bike program at the MET. “I always knew that the two initiatives would cross paths but now, with this grant, they actually come together in an effort to get this group on bicycles, around the park, around the city and even, if possible, leading younger students in the ways of the road.”

We are thrilled to support so many great projects across Providence and know that these small but impactful efforts led by local organizations and community members will help raise awareness and support for safer and healthier streets.

The full list of grant awardees is below. We will keep our community informed about when these great projects are coming to life!