Project funded by $1.2 million donation from Viola Davis and Julius Tennon

Since 2024, the Davis-Tennon Foundation has donated resources to the Central Falls, Rhode Island community where founder, actress and producer Viola Davis grew up. Now fortified by a recent million-dollar investment, the foundation will put down permanent, physical roots for families in need.

325 Illinois Avenue, once an old loom reed mill, will be reconstructed to house The Mary Alice Davis Family Engagement Center, named in honor of Davis’ mother. The building will feature an expanded food pantry, a parent resource center, workforce development and financial literacy programming, and the foundation’s administrative offices under one roof.

The Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence will occupy the second floor of the facility set to open within the next year in Central Falls, a predominantly Latino community just north of Providence.

For Angelo Garcia, Chair of the Davis-Tennon Foundation and founder of Segue Institute for Learning, the project is the culmination of decades of community advocacy and a friendship that stretches back to childhood.

Twenty years later, he and actor and producer couple Davis and Julius Tennon began talks about how to be intentional and “significant with the generosity and the fortune that has come their way.”

The foundation spent its first year giving out grants to local organizations — but Davis wanted more.

“‘This is still not landing the way I wanted to,’” Garcia, now foundation chair, recalled her saying. That conversation is what pushed the foundation to building something of its own and “take this leap.”

Funded by the recent $1.2 million donation from Davis and Tennon, the center will formalize partnerships with organizations including the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, Farm Fresh Rhode Island, Sojourner House, Blackstone Valley Community Action Program, and the Rhode Island Parent Information Network.

Garcia is also in talks with nonprofit Dorcas Place about bringing services into the building to specifically support refugees, immigrants and English learners.

“The face of who goes to the food bank is different,” Garcia said. Within the current economic crisis, many professionals, teachers, and students also rely on food pantries. Currently, the foundation serves 3,000 locals a month.

The center’s aim is less about adding new services and more about expanding reach to people who typically have more barriers to accessing support, like families dealing with unmet immediate needs and domestic violence.

According to Garcia, it is meant to be a safe haven and single point of entry for families struggling in multiple ways.

“We have the capacity to save ourselves,” he said. “We just need the guidance to get us there.”

Asked about the broader forces shaping the families the foundation serves in Central Falls, Garcia pointed to widening economic disparity.

“There is a huge imbalance of power and wealth in this country that is frightening,” he said, describing a growing gap “in the haves and the have nots.” The Census Bureau estimates Central Falls’ poverty rate as nearly 25% — more than double Rhode Island’s statewide rate of about 11%. The area’s median household income is $49,285, well below the state median of $87,796.

Garcia hopes, however, that the foundation’s reach will extend beyond the most immediate community. “I think about others looking at us as an exemplar,” he said, pointing to attention from national partners, such as L’Oréal, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Delta, who are interested in the organization’s mission and structure.

“Viola is not only planting the seed,” he said. “She is giving us a national platform.”

For young Black and Latino Rhode Islanders who see Davis’ rise from Central Falls as proof of what’s possible, Garcia’s message centered on agency and mentorship.

“I think power is not given, it’s taken,” he said. “Complacency has become the norm ... I always tell people to bring someone with you. I do believe that we have to bring people along with us.”