AFTERWORDS
Providence? Divine.
80
November 2017
Gabe Webb, June Calk, Doug Rentz and Laura Scott of the NTA staff and Jay Smith,
chair of the NTA Board of Directors, at Tourism Cares for Providence
even out the soil and spread decorative
gray and red rock around the base of
the tree.
It quickly became clear that my dirt-
digging cohort came to work—and so did
the railing painters, planters and weed-
pullers. As the day wore on and the
to-do list grew shorter, we were directed
to the perimeter of the park for fence
painting. When it was time to clean up,
our human capital had yielded signifi-
cant dividends: 900 new plants at India
Point and Burnside parks, a new mural
celebrating Scialo Bros.’ 100th year on
Federal Hill, and the equivalent of seven
weeks of labor for the city of Providence.
Throughout the work day, locals
passing by the park stopped and asked
IF ROGER WILLIAMS, the founder of
Providence, Rhode Island, had asked me
in 1636 what I thought of the name for
his new city, I would almost certainly
have said, “Bold move, dude.”
I describe myself as a cautious opti-
mist: Hope for the best and prepare
for the worst. So the act of Williams, a
17th-century theologian exiled from the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, bestowing a
name synonymous with divine protec-
tion and good fortune, seems lofty to me.
But after the Tourism Cares for
Providence volunteering event, Sept. 14–15,
I’m a believer in Providence. Here’s why.
In the week leading up to the event,
the forecast was dire. It seemed that
every few hours, one of my NTA col-
leagues scheduled to join me for the trip
would lean in and declare that the pre-
dicted likelihood of rain had increased.
A 50 percent chance of showers gradu-
ally became a 100 percent chance of tor-
rential downpours.
I remembered these warnings as
Laura Scott, June Calk, Doug Rentz and
I arrived in Rhode Island the after-
noon before the our work day. We had
planned to spend our evening taking
a ferry to Newport to see some the
mansions that are under the care of
the Preservation Society of Newport
County, a long-time NTA member. As
our catamaran headed into open water,
we encountered heavy fog, only for it to
pass and reveal a clear, golden evening
when we docked at Newport. This per-
fect weather would stay with us for the
rest of our time in Rhode Island, as if
Providence were flouting the meteoro-
logical naysayers.
The next day, we joined 175 volun-
teers from the travel industry, who
were spread between India Point Park,
Burnside Park and Scialo Bros. Bakery.
Tasks included planting, painting fences
and railings, spreading mulch and deco-
rative rock, and creating a mural. I was
in Burnside Park, removing dirt from
brick planters containing small trees.
Masons then repaired the spots where
tree roots had displaced the bricks. If no
repairs were needed, our team would
BY GABE WEBB
us about our project, and almost all of
them seemed genuinely appreciative of
the scores of volunteers who donated
their time and energy. (The lone dis-
senter had a lot to say about the mayor.)
And this might be what was most
providential about this and all other
Tourism Cares projects: that, from an
outsider’s perspective, hundreds of
people would materialize from around
the region and the country for a day of
hard work. While I hesitate to call any
part of my experience divine (although
I did have an amazing seafood paella),
when a community—be it geographi-
cal, professional or personal—unites to
protect shared spaces, we all enjoy good
fortune. That’s Providence.