After over three feet of snow blanketed Providence last week, a flurry of residents have come together to organize snow-shoveling efforts across the city. The severity of the blizzard, combined with local frustration about the city’s response, have motivated many to join group chats and post on Reddit threads dedicated to clearing Providence’s streets and sidewalks.
Areas of the city that “nobody owns and nobody claims” have accumulated large amounts of snow that “nobody feels like they’re responsible for,” said Jon Kletzien, a Providence resident who started shoveling snow of his own accord.
“I was just so tired of people complaining about everything,” he said. “I was just like, ‘You know what? I’m just gonna go out and shovel.’”
After days of shoveling on his own, Kletzien “put out there” an invitation to join him in clearing Randall Square. A few people showed up, including one community member who set up a Signal group chat dedicated to snow shoveling efforts called “labor of love.” The chat now has over 200 members.
Cooper Lewis, another Providence resident, said he was “plugged in” to the shoveling efforts through political advocacy groups he is involved with. Over the past week, he said he has spent more than 20 hours shoveling, focusing on “bus stops and sidewalks near apartment complexes that house a lot of elderly people.”
“It’d be like, ‘highway and roads are plowed, crisis over,’” Lewis said. “Meanwhile, I’m struggling to climb over snow piles getting off the bus.”
The City of Providence’s “snow removal operations followed an approach based on public safety needs,” City spokesperson Josh Estrella wrote in an email to The Herald.
According to Estrella, the city prioritized plowing primary roadways, including those that connected hospitals and schools. After addressing those roads, city snow crews focused on clearing residential and commercial roads before starting to work on bike lanes and sidewalks.
Lewis believes that the large number of volunteers partly stems from people recognizing the need to organize a community response to “such a heavy snowfall.” He added that the community likely acknowledged the risks — such as “elderly people falling on unmaintained walkways (and) people walking in the street getting hit” — of not taking action.
Last week, the city announced the Providence Snow Corps, a snow removal volunteer matching program which aims to provide “effective relief for aging, disabled and medically limited neighbors who are unable to shovel their steps, walkways and private paths to safely reach the street,” Estrella wrote.
“The city is aware of the community-led shoveling efforts and we greatly appreciate residents who are stepping up to support their neighbors,” Estrella wrote. Since the blizzard has increased the workloads of city crews, “community cooperation” has made “a real difference,” he added.
Another resident, Jordan DoMonte, learned about the snow shoveling initiative through posts on the Providence subreddit.
“I wanted to join to make a difference in a way the city couldn’t,” he wrote in a message to The Herald. “I wanted to feel a part of the community.”
“Providence isn’t a big city with a ton of resources, but they got a lot of deserved flak for how they handled the last storm,” DoMonte wrote. “Considering the historic blizzard we had, I think the city is doing okay this time.”
DoMonte believes the city should prioritize clearing bus stops and sidewalks, noting how some people may not be able to afford cars and instead rely on biking, walking and public transportation to navigate the city.
“To keep the city alive and healthy, people need to get around, and that doesn’t mean just cars,” he wrote.
According to Estrella, “Mayor Smiley knows it is critical that we come together to improve our infrastructure and redesign our city streets to ensure Providence is safe for the many pedestrians, cyclists and motorists who live, work and visit our city.”
Alex Diaz-Papkovich, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Data Science Institute, heard about the shoveling Signal groups through the Providence Streets Coalition, a street safety organization.
While Diaz-Papkovich said he has done “little shoveling” compared to others, he has helped clear crosswalks and driveways around Providence, he said in an interview with The Herald. Diaz-Papkovich has also helped out his neighbors who don’t own shovels.
“One of my main motivations (for shoveling) was pedestrian safety,” he said. Another reason was due to people, who were in circumstances where they couldn’t shovel on their own, asking for help in the Signal chat he is a part of, Diaz-Papkovich added.
“It is really heartening to know that there are several dozen people who are at least interested in helping,” Diaz-Papkovich said. “It kind of forges community to know that there’s someone who can help you out.”
Michaela Hanson is a senior staff writer covering community and culture.
