The Seasons Assisted Living
A Premier Non-Profit Residence
Traditional & Memory Care Neighborhoods Available
programs for qualified veterans & short-term stays
Celebrate Life With Us!
EAST GREENWICH
Five Saint Elizabeth Way
East Greenwich, RI
401.884.9099
www.theseasons.org
A joint venture of The Scandinavian Communities and
Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation
for local businesses, and nearly all were
back up and running within two weeks.
“That seemed like the most daunting
challenge of my career,” Konicki says.
And then came Sandy in October of 2012.
“Superstorm Sandy devastated Misquamicut,
brought it to its knees, wiped businesses
off their footprint like they never
even existed at all,” she says. Her chamber
raised $430,000 in relief funds and,
every month, she’d drive checks down
to tearful business owners. “That was a
six-month intense process, but we had
amazing results.”
By Memorial Day of 2013, twenty-eight
out of twenty-nine businesses in Misquamicut
had reopened.
“Now fast forward to this situation,”
says Konicki of the 2020 coronavirus
pandemic, Rhode Island’s stay-at-home
order and the phased reopening schedule.
“It’s getting old being the recovery chamber.
What’s next, aliens from Mars?”
Her comment evokes the boys from
last summer with their blow-up martians,
nudging each other along Atlantic Avenue.
It’s astonishing how fast the world
can change — especially in a place like
Misquamicut, where time seems to stand
still.
“In the one sense, I guess I should feel
grateful that despite those horrific situations,
we could be nimble, we knew
things that could work,” Konicki says of
the chamber’s pandemic response. “People
have come to count on us.”
By press time, Konicki was helping
some restaurants fine-tune their outdoor
dining procedures while others weighed
the pros and cons of reopening at all, comparing
their fixed expenses with drastically
reduced capacity. The businesses,
Konicki says, bank their livelihoods on
six months of packed-in tourism.
“They’re still going to have less potential
customers to work with, because of
those decisions,” she says. “It’s painful.
This is something I cannot control. That’s
the kind of stuff that breaks my heart and
keeps me up at night.”
Despite her concerns for the region,
Konicki believes Misquamicut is hardier
than most communities.
“These are stubborn Yankees that have
a lot of pride,” she says. “Many are family
businesses. They feel a family legacy weight
on their shoulders to open and survive this.
That’s what makes them different. Will it
be changed? I hope not. Because it’s pretty
90 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l JULY 2020