Stump Evans Seeks New Horizons
After 15 years, Stump Evans is leaving her position as Director of Employment, Education and Support Services at Community Care Alliance. Stump is best known for engaging Woonsocket youth who were seeking a safe environment to express their true selves and discover strengths to enter adulthood with skills to gain employment. While structured as a career development center, this program, “The Harbour” was a name chosen by kids yearning for a place to belong in a safe, supportive environment.
Hundreds of youth attribute their success after high school to the connections they made through The Harbour Youth Center at Community Care Alliance (CCA) along with the counsel, understanding and respect they encountered in Stump Evans. Under Stumps leadership, as many as 90 members would access services each week and participate in employment programs such as, Life Skills, Workforce Investment Opportunity Act programs (WIOA), Pathways to Adulting, Independence and Dignity (PAID), and Summer Jobs.
Stumps achievements include recognition by the Workforce Partners of Greater RI for programming that was designed with an eye toward the needs of the young people she served. The PAID program was an innovative program Stump directed to offer work readiness, and placement in several work situations to provide career exploration for 16 – 29-year-olds.
For over four years, Stump led a boat building initiative that was an innovative approach to skills-building that brought kids outside the bounds of the city and experience. At the end of the program, students would launch the boat they had crafted thanks to a partnership with Rhode Island Marine Trades Association, the Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol and a REAL JOBS RI grant. The program was highlighted in the Governors Workforce Board (GWB) 2025 Real Skills for Youth reel and the GWB awarded Stump the Voices of Change Award for making positive change in the community.
Stump held deep concern for dire real-life situations that kids brought with them to The Harbour. In 2024, the SAMHSA No Limits grant expanded services to provide trauma-informed, evidence-based clinical, prevention, harm reduction and recovery services for at-risk youth and young adults. With more members showing signs of food insecurity, The Harbour introduced the Miriam Kaba food pantry as a result of a grant awarded to a former youth center member through The Papitto Opportunity Connection.
With roots in the LGBTQ community, Stump was chosen by the Philadelphia Coalition for Queer Justice and Intersectional Equity to speak at The New Normal: LGBTQ+ Youth Living Through COVID-19, a national conference that gathered medical professionals, child welfare workers, prevention workers, mentors, and executives from a variety of disciplines. Stump Evans, highlighted the innovative strategies that her team had created to stay engaged with clients, provide employment opportunities, clinical supports and academic services on virtual platforms during the COVID epidemic. The CCA Portraits of Promise series highlighted 30 youth who worked on the frontlines at that time.
Stump is involved with Youth Pathways and Adult Pathways Advisory Councils and serves on the Board of Directors of Beacon Charter School.
Co-workers and friends at Community Care Alliance wish Stump Evans well in her new endeavors.