Wednesday, October 05, 2016
Source: Century Martial Arts
“The Journey of Tori Lynn Andreozzi” has recently been featured on Century Martial Arts website. Century's Journeys stories focus on the unconquerable spirit of incredible martial artists, whose journeys expand the vision of all who listen. View Tori's story.
Friday, September 23, 2016
Source: WPRI.com
The Rhode Island Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving hosted a breakfast at the Crowne Plaza the morning of Friday September 23rd to honor local law enforcement officers and others for their efforts in helping to reduce drunk driving in the state.
Among those bestowed with honors were representatives of the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office, including assistant attorney general Steven Regine, who was named Statewide Prosecutor of the Year.
The organization also honored school resource officers, educators, and others.
Eyewitness News anchor Shannon Hegy emceed the event.
For more details and a full list of categories and winners click here.
Tuesday, March 01, 2016
The week of March 14th Our State House dome will be lite in blue in honor of Brain Injury Awareness Month.
You can support BIARI every Tuesday in March by dining at Not Your Average Joe's on Bald Hill Rd. Warwick and 15% of your check will be donated to BIARI.
Use the coupon below to make your donation:
Monday, February 01, 2016
The annual Youth In Action Program took place on Saturday, January 30th at Rhode Island College. Forty youth participants representing 13 communities across the state attended the program, where they learned about environmental strategies to make a difference in their towns and in the state of Rhode Island. The youth learned about seat belt safety, distracted driving, alcohol in the media, and alcohol compliance checks. At the end of the program, each participant signed up for a committee that is part of MADD RI’s Youth Coalition. This coalition is made up of youth that have attended Youth In Action, and meets monthly to work on MADD RI initiatives regarding law enforcement, media, and legislation.
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Source: Turn to 10
Prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, Turn to 10 ran a report on drunk driving which featured Tori's story as part of the news segment. Cathy Andreozzi also spoke about the power of choices and reprentatives from the State Police were interviewed about their efforts to prevent drunk driving deaths on the roads this holiday season.
You can read the report here or see the video below.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Source: Providence Journal
BY GABRIELLE M. ABBATE
Rhode Island is a state with some of the world’s greatest parents — parents who have the confidence to understand they don’t need to be the “cool” parent, who don’t need to be their child’s best friend. We have parents who do the right thing every day, even on days when their children tell them they “hate” them.
And to those parents who have no clue? It’s okay if your child “hates” you. Good parents know two things: Their child really doesn’t hate them but is simply trying to manipulate them; and when they are temporarily hated it is because they did something to protect their child.
We’re tired of apologies. We’re frustrated with parents who host parties and then serve alcohol and drugs to their children’s friends when they don’t even know if that friend is a diabetic, is taking an anti-depressant or has a medical condition that could be life-threatening when mixed with alcohol.
How is it that these parents and adults disregard their moral responsibility and even the financial liability of creating a dangerous environment that may eventually ripple out onto our streets as drunk and drugged driving fatalities, alcohol poisoning, drug overdoses and other serious injuries? Their unreasonable fear of alienating their children and doing the right things leads them to do very dangerous things.
In the end, they rarely win. No one does.
Few parents would let their child participate in a sport without protective gear. Yet these same parents offer them brain-altering substances. They fail to appreciate the reality of addiction. Talk to most addicts and many can tell you the exact moment in their teens when they took their first drink. Today their story is one of addiction or struggling recovery.
Many in our society are trying to get guns out of the hands of young people, to keep them safe and out of harm’s way. We lock up guns in our homes, but we seldom lock up alcohol. We invest billions of dollars in our educational system but lack the common sense to keep young people safe for learning with well-developed brains. We applaud parents who hide poisons, plug up electrical sockets and put safety gates in front of staircases to protect young children. But how does it happen that we become so overly confident with their safety at age 12 to 18 that we deliberately introduce them to dangerous substances and dangerous environments?
These questions beg a more fundamental one: When should a parent or a community abdicate the safety of a child? When the child is 5? 10? 15? Yes, children want to become independent of their parents. They want us to step away. That’s the natural order, something they should desire. But their choices are not always in their best interest. Whether they are 3 or 16, we owe our children protection and safety. It is their right to receive them and believe that they have them.
There are fundamental things parents can do to help eradicate this growing problem:
British blogger David Bly once said: “Your children will become what you are; so be what you want them to be.”
This commentary piece isn’t filled with statistics that support why we need to remain vigilant. The Internet is filled with credible research. We encourage parents to look at the numbers and look in the eyes of any child and solemnly pledge to protect him or her.
Gabrielle M. Abbate is executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Source: Providence Journal
WARWICK, R.I. — The North Kingstown police reached a deal Tuesday to drop a charge that a local mother violated the state’s social-host law by allowing teenagers to drink at her daughter’s 16th birthday party in exchange for her contributing $5,000 to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
But MADD, whose mission is to stop drunken driving and prevent underage drinking, wants nothing to do with the money, according to Gabrielle Abbate, executive director of MADD in Rhode Island. The organization will not accept the contribution.
“The sentence sends the wrong message about the dangers of providing alcohol to those who are underage,” Abbate said. The law needs to be enforced to its full extent and should apply to everyone regardless of their financial situation, she said.
Under a plea agreement reached before Judge Frank J. Cenerini in Kent County District Court, the police agreed on Tuesday to dismiss misdemeanor charges against Jayne Donegan accusing her of violating the social-host law by allowing underage drinking at her 251 Wilbert Way home and of assaulting a police officer.
In addition, Donegan entered a not guilty filing to a charge that she obstructed a police officer who responded to her home. A not guilty filing means the charge will be dismissed if Donegan is not arrested in the coming year.
Donegan’s lawyer, William P. Devereaux, said his client learned from the experience, namely how fast word spread about the party, spurring uninvited, older guests who drove cars to descend on her home. Her daughter’s invited guests did not have their drivers’ licenses, he said.
“It was a situation where there was never any evidence that she procured alcohol or allowed alcohol to be consumed in her house,” Devereaux said. “She has not admitted to anything.”
Reached Tuesday night, Devereaux said that Cenerini mandated the plea agreement.
If MADD chooses to reject the money, “that’s entirely up to them. The contribution was made in good faith by Ms. Donegan.”
He said he would meet with the town prosecutor about other possible recipients.
The police went to Donegan’s house Jan. 25 after they received a complaint about teens drinking alcohol and running through the neighborhood and urinating in people’s yards, according to a police report.
When the first officer arrived, he saw a “swarm of kids” running from the house and spoke with a boy and a girl outside who admitted that they had been drinking, the police report said.
The police report states that Donegan initially refused to let police in, saying that she was an attorney who knew her rights and that they did not have a search warrant. Donegan’s LinkedIn page lists her job as Textron’s senior associate general counsel.
The police said they advised her that they had reason to believe that there was underage drinking on the property and that they also needed to check on the well-being of juveniles.
The police said that while Donegan was calling 911 to have the officer removed from her house, he checked the basement where there was loud music, black lights, glow sticks and bottles of alcohol scattered about, as well as a “beer pong table” for the drinking game. The police say that two minors were taken to a hospital for intoxication and that another minor received a summons for marijuana possession.
Officials have said that the party, which was reportedly a 16th birthday party for Donegan’s daughter, was attended almost exclusively by East Greenwich teenagers.
North Kingstown Police Chief Thomas Mulligan said Tuesday that he believed the disposition was appropriate given that Donegan had a clean record prior to the incident. Donegan did not get preferential treatment, he said.
Mulligan was not aware of MADD’s position and could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.
Those accused of violating the social-host law face a misdemeanor charge. First offenders who plead no contest or are convicted face $350 to $1,000 in fines, up to six months in prison, or both.
Monday, January 06, 2014
Source: Providence Journal
PROVIDENCE — Dan Bacher has an easy, gentle manner as he intently watches Cathy Hutchinson’s head and eye movements for the subtle responses she offers as they communicate.
He has driven to the East Taunton, Mass., group home where Hutchinson lives to attach a new Windows computer tablet to her wheelchair and show her the software he and a team have developed for her. Since Hutchinson suffered a brain stem stroke in 1996 that left her body nearly motionless — but her mind alert — she has lived with a condition known as “locked-in syndrome.” For her, communicating is difficult and time-consuming, but she persists.
Bacher launched the nonprofit, SpeakYourMind Foundation Inc., last January to create better, less expensive communication tools for Hutchinson and people with degenerative neurological diseases.
He began SpeakYourMind while working as a research engineer at BrainGate, the collaboration between Brown University and a number of renowned academic institutions that has pioneered an experimental brain implant. The BrainGate team helps people with severe paralysis interact with computers and regain some movement.
Bacher, 29, still works at BrainGate part-time, but he’s focusing most of his efforts these days on developing SpeakYourMind. He’s collaborating with Brown students, who’ve helped him determine how to take the nonprofit to the next level.
“He’s a unique individual. … He relates to academics and the medical community and the patients and the students,” says Brendan McNally, associate director at Brown’s Business Entrepreneurship and Organizations program, who has connected those students with Bacher. “He’s exceptional. He’s got some of those God-given skills and qualities.”
Bacher said Providence is the ideal place to locate SpeakYourMind because it has the right mix of resources.
The Brown University Institute for Brain Science, for example, is conducting groundbreaking research with BrainGate. Engineering students from Brown and the University of Rhode Island are equipped to solve real-world problems. And, Bacher says, the Rhode Island School of Design offers an “amazing addition” to the world of assistive medical technology, which hasn’t relied much on design until now.
Plus, Bacher praises the local startup scene, including groups such as the Founders League and Betaspring, as well as the social-enterprise movement that’s working to develop nonprofit and for-profit entities seeking to solve world problems.
BrainGate drew Bacher to Rhode Island in 2009. After he earned a master’s degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, he was working toward a Ph.D. there conducting research with monkeys to create technology that interfaces with the brain. But he abandoned that Ph.D. program for the opportunity to conduct research with people, instead, at BrainGate.
Dr. Leigh Hochberg — one of the BrainGate doctors, Bacher’s boss at Brown and a member of the SpeakYourMind board of directors — says he sees “great synergy” between BrainGate and SpeakYourMind. Like Bacher, Hochberg has seen the limitations of systems designed to help people communicate.
Regardless of whether people involved with BrainGate have been using inexpensive or expensive devices, Hochberg says nearly everyone expresses frustration that the equipment hasn’t worked, is unreliable, takes weeks to get fixed or doesn’t get repaired at all.
“They were more often in the closet, stacked up with other technologies that had failed, than actually being used,” Hochberg said. “And while that might be OK for a toaster, it’s not OK if it’s somebody’s primary method for communication.”
Both Hochberg and Bacher met Cathy Hutchinson through BrainGate, where she was one of the first participants in their clinical trials.
A computer chip implanted in her brain allowed her to move a robotic arm by thinking about doing so, pick up a coffee, move it toward her lips and sip the drink through a straw. Yet she struggled with her existing communications technology.
Watching her, Bacher says, is how the idea for SpeakYourMind was born.
He began crafting low-cost alternatives. He posted on Internet forums, seeking volunteers to help alter software to meet the needs of individuals. People responded and gave their time to help those in need.
At Hutchinson’s house on a recent morning, it took a few minutes for her to communicate her strongest need to Bacher. Finally, an email she had sent earlier arrived in his inbox: Could he contact the company that built her $10,000 communications device and ask them to fix it?
Of course, he told her, but instead, he was ready to remove that old computer from her wheelchair and give her the Windows tablet — which cost $800 — and teach her how the new communications software would work.
Relying on the tablet’s built-in camera to observe her ever-so-slight head movements, Hutchinson began using a “radial keyboard” that displays letters in groupings, like those on a telephone dial pad. As Hutchinson’s head moves, the computer’s cursor selects letter groups, and algorithms work to offer all the possible words she might be spelling out. Hutchinson then selects the correct word, sometimes before “typing” all the letters, so she can write her thoughts with the computer and communicate with someone in the room or via email.
It doesn’t work perfectly yet, but Bacher showed her how it functions, gave her time to practice, and took note of what worked and what didn’t.
“It’s still a little sensitive, huh?” Bacher asked as he watched her attempt to select letters. “You like it?”
Hutchinson, 60, welcomed The Providence Journal into her home to watch Bacher work with her. But she answered questions before the visit, in a short email she composed with her old communications software, a task that took 45 minutes.
“I’m excited about the future of sym,” she wrote, using an acronym for Bacher’s nonprofit. “I have faith in sym and I’m very optimistic about the help it will bring to so many.”
Bacher tells Hutchinson how much he likes the sticker she displays on her wheelchair: “My legs don’t work, but my brain does.”
View the original Providence Journal article.
indiegogo.com/projects/speakyourmind-foundation
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Source: golocalprov.com
Last weekend, thousands of BoldrDashers and spectators blanketed the valley and tree-lined hills of Exeter’s Yawgoo Valley Ski & Water Park. Stretched and prepared for the momentous task ahead, the first heat kicked off the 3rd Annual BoldrDash Mud Race at 9am on Saturday. For two days, Rhode Island’s only 5k, military-style obstacle course, transformed New England’s southernmost winter ski resort into over three miles of scalable walls, cargo net climbs, muddy belly crawls, and over 20 other obstacles. The biggest turnout ever led to the first two-day Dash at Yawgoo, with over 2000 spectators and volunteers, and nearly 2000 Dashers who came to conquer the course and BE BOLD.
New: kids in the mud
BoldrDash also introduced their first-ever kids’ race. Nearly 400 participants, ages 4-12 tackled obstacles in their own quarter- to half- mile courses. Smiles all around as boys and girls finished – sweaty, wet, muddy, but BOLD – to greet their parents and hundreds of other spectators.
Both days were filled with lots of eccentric characters and local celebrities, from Cranston Mayor Allan Fung who conquered Sunday’s race with his team, Fungamaniacs to Tim McCrohon and Deb Owens of Worcester, MA, who joined the race in full wedding attire after getting married the night before. While individuals and teams – some with painted faces or crazy costumes – raised over $2000 for J. Arthur Trudeau Memorial Center, some teams also raced for their own causes, including Curvy Girls, a support group for Children with Scoliosis. Sunday began with a very special “Hero Challenge” wave for first responders including a first-ever combined team of State Police cadets and the Municipal Police cadets, who raced to support Special Olympics of RI.
Allan Fung gets dirty for a good cause
“It was a challenging course but my team and I had a great time – and I'm proud to say we were all up to the BoldrDash challenge,” says Mayor of Cranston, Allan Fung.” Now onto even greater challenges for the people of Rhode Island – As hard as I worked on this course, I will be working even harder on their behalf.”
“This was just an unbelievable turnout of amazing people and teams. Each race is unique and each course has its own set of challenges,” says personal trainer and athlete, Lynn Hall, who started this event in 2011. “Yawgoo is particularly challenging because racers are tackling obstacles while running up and down hills. But they were all up to the task.”
It takes a village to get this muddy
This year’s race took over 200 volunteers to pull off the immense amount of detail and setup needed for an obstacle course event of this size. They all were welcomed to join Dashers at a free after-party with live music, by Transmission. Many racers took advantage of free onsite services for their aching bodies, including free Olympic taping athletes by HealthSource Chiropractic and Progressive Wellness of North Providence, and injury assessments and post-race stretching by Lepre Physical Therapy. REI also set up a relaxation lounge with Outdoor School fitness experts. The first 1,000 cars to get to Yawgoo received a special gift from The Tori Lynn Andreozzi Foundation with a reminder to #beBOLD, don't drink and drive.
“The course was fantastic, challenging and it was great to have both [police] academies work together…,” said an exhausted Tom Chabot, Basic Training Officer for RI Municipal Police Training Academy. “We'll be back!”
BoldrDash began in Yawgoo Valley as a Mud Race but is now planning other races throughout New England, as well as Beach Races, the first of which took place in Westerly this past May, to support the Hurricane Sandy devastated the area. Another Beach Race is scheduled at Misquamicut Beach on May 2nd, 2014. Registrations for that race will open in November.
“BoldrDash is about boldly overcoming limitations with determination,” said Hall. “At the end of the day, every single participant is a winner and they know what it means to be BOLD.”
View Our Photos from this Event!
Monday, April 29, 2013
Source: WickedLocal.com
Norton — On April 29, the Norton High School SADD chapter conducted a mock OUI crash with the assistance of the Norton Police and Fire departments. Fogerty’s Towing of Norton also provided assistance with preparing, donating and placing the vehicles. Norton Memorial Funeral Home assisted as well.
A drunk driving scenario was enacted and was followed by guest speaker Kathy Andreozzi, whose daughter, Tori, was permanently disabled by a drunk driver several years ago.
Students and faculty looked on as Norton High School students acted in the scenario and speakers discussed the dangers and implications of drinking and driving.
Norton High School’s prom is this Saturday, May 4.
