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 Dear Friends of R2LP,
You may have read in The Providence Journal several weeks ago that The Providence Plan had fired its Director of Finance upon learning that he had embezzled funds from the organization. What you may not know is that Ready to Learn Providence is a program of The Providence Plan, and, as a result, this news has ramifications for R2LP and our work.
Since we learned of the embezzlement, The Providence Plan has been transparent and forthright, notifying all of our funding sources and launching a thorough investigation to understand how this happened. The organization has beefed up its finance staff, and forensic auditors are currently at work.
Here at Ready to Learn we have a full slate of professional development activities taking place this month, our T.E.A.C.H. scholars are currently taking classes at the colleges, and children in our three prekindergarten classrooms started their school year last week. However, we were recently notified that one of R2LP's important funding sources has decided to put a temporary hold on funding until the investigation is complete and enhanced fiscal policies and procedures are in place. This means that R2LP will be temporarily unable to offer some of our programs, including our Mind in the Making work with Providence Schools and our AmeriCorps program. We are optimistic that this hold will be short and that we will be able to resume these activities soon.
As you can imagine, this has been a challenging time for the R2LP staff who work with unparalleled passion and commitment on behalf of young children and their families. This disruption in our services has troubled us deeply, but we pledge to resume our mission -- in full -- as quickly as we can. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me directly at 401.490.9960. I don't have to tell you how much we value you as members of the Ready to Learn community. Together we have achieved so much for our state's youngest children. Based on the progress we are making in addressing our current challenges, I remain optimistic that this work will continue well into the future. |
