PACE Organization of Rhode Island

We were pleased to welcome Dr. Kristin Russell, MD, MBA, the Chief Medical Officer at Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island, for a tour of our East Providence day center. We were impressed by her focus on addressing the behavioral and maternal health disparities in Rhode Island, and enjoyed the opportunity to share about how we can continue to support communities in the Ocean State. We are grateful to our friends at Neighborhood for 30 years of mission-driven work!

We were happy to welcome Director kasim yarn of the Rhode Island Office of Veterans Services to our East Providence day center. Director Yarn spoke with our staff and older adults—including some of the 17 veterans that received PACE care. Show them the center, introduce them to our staff and participants. We were thankful for the opportunity to spend time with Director Yarn and to discuss expanding home and community-based long-term care services to older veterans in our state!

Here's another moment from Mission Month. Board member Marie Ganim visited our Woonsocket day center to help our participants with arts and crafts. Marie chatted with our older adults as she washed paintbrushes, squeezed paint on palettes, and helped make beaded necklaces. "I had a lot of fun. Everyone was enthusiastic," she said. "They were very engaged socially and were highly supportive of each other. It just seemed like a happy place to be!"

It's Mission Month at PACE-RI! Our board members help us make key decisions and plan for the future. But they know that they can't make high-level decisions without being connected to the older adults in our care. Each May, our board members find the opportunities to directly connect with PACE participants. This Mission Month, Megan Herne, PHR, SHRM-CP of Cooley Group and Dr. Mitchell Wice of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University visited our East Providence center to serve lunch.

Lead CNA Ana Cordon loves working at PACE-RI. Watch this video to learn why!

Happy Earth Day! On Saturday, PACE-RI staff and their loved ones joined in on a beach cleanup at Rose Larisa Park, just a few miles away from our East Providence day center. Thank you to all who came out on this rainy morning, and thank you to Save The Bay - Narragansett Bay for hosting the event. From cleanups, to office composting, to raised bed gardening, we're committed to caring for the Earth. Our job is to care for older adults, but we also want to leave the world a better place for the next generation.

PACE-RI welcomed some special guests from the Rhode Island Department of Housing this week! A hearty thanks to Housing Secretary Stefan Pryor, Tara Booker (Executive Director of Homelessness), and Joey Lindstrom (Chief of Program Development), for making the time to tour our East Providence center, meet with participants, and discuss ways we can work together to improve access to affordable housing for elders.

We’re proud to share that CEO Joan Kwiatkowski will be a panelist at next Thursday’s Health Care Summit and Health Care Heroes Award Program, hosted by Providence Business News. PACE-RI is no stranger to this event. At the 2023 awards, Lead CNA Brenda Brassard was named a Home Health Care Hero because of her dedicated care for our PACE participants and their families, as well being a source of support for her teammates. This is event is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments of Rhode Island’s remarkable health care workers, as well as to learn about the challenges and opportunities that face the health care industry.

In honor of Pi Day, we held a pie-baking contest at PACE-RI. 10 pies (submitted by staff from all four locations) competed for the grand prize. But there could only be one winner. Congratulations to "Sprinkled with Love" for their winning entry: a decadent chocolate espresso pie. They are the winner of this year's Golden Pin! We want to give special thanks to our community pie judges, including representatives from the East Providence Fire Dept and East Providence Police Department. We know and appreciate the hard work and dedication they put into keeping our community safe—in fact, the firefighters are absent from the winner's photo because they had to leave to respond to a call. Our other guest judges represented trusted vendors: New Generation Transportation Inc and CSI - Communication Systems, Inc., our security systems provider.

You may have heard about us from a friend or professional connection, seen our green buses around town or passed by our billboard on Wampanoag Trail. But what is PACE-RI? This helpful video shares about the services we offer, with the goal of helping older adults and caregivers determine whether the PACE program is the right fit for them!