DARE was founded in 1986 by residents in Providence’s Southside who joined together to fight for basic improvements in their community.  The early victories of their efforts taught them that there is strength in unity.  Since its origins, DARE has operated with the belief that the best way to make the changes that are so desperately needed in low-income communities is through grassroots community organizing.

Major Accomplishments

• Organizing youth to design and win a multicultural curriculum, taught in all major public high schools in Providence (1995ish), and to win passage of a new Code of Conduct in all Providence Schools with alternatives to suspensions (2005-2006);
• Developing a program to turn city vacant land over to neighbors for $1 (1997ish);
• Making Rhode Island the first state to provide health insurance to home childcare providers (1996);
• Bringing together former prisoners and their families to pass state legislation removing barriers to receiving food stamps and welfare benefits (2003ish), and to pass state legislation for a new, more affordable phone system in the prisons (2006);
• Winning passage of the Providence External Review Authority, a civilian review of the Providence Police (2002);
• Organizing “temporary” and unemployed workers to win permanent employment with increased wages and benefits (2000-2003);
• Winning a declaratory judgment forcing the City of Providence to stop granting any contracts or tax breaks until implementation of the First Source Hiring law, and later winning a consent judgment for this implementation for access to publicly funded jobs, including people with prison records (2006).
• Organizing to stop the passage of a $60 million Tax Increment Financing plan that would have benefited large downtown corporations at the expense of our communities (2006).

History of Victories & Achievements timeline