RI Non-Profit Khadarlis Announces New Logo!

With the New Year comes new changes!

This year, Khadarlis is moving forward with a new logo, and we would love to share it with you. Take a look at some of Khadarlis' past logos below, and our newest logo below!

This logo will soon be featured at our new location on 105 Dodge Street Providence, RI.

Our new logo emphasizes our commitment to serve both Rhode Island and Sierra Leone. We do this with full giving and service, with our own bare hands.

All of the efforts of our staff and volunteers are symbolized within this connection. After all, we at Khadarlis always keep this saying in mind:

"Reaching to Connect means Everything. Reaching to Connect comes from the Heart."

Do you like our new logo? Comment and tell us what you think!

Khadarlis is moving this December!

They say the holiday season is the time of year for change and new beginnings. It's no different here for Khadarlis!

Since mid-December our wonderful staff and volunteers have been packing our office on Chalkstone Avenue. We've had a great run here at the Lillian Shawn Feinstein Center, but it is time to move!
And there is a lot to move!

You never really know how much there is to move until you actually have to! As we take down the posters and projects from our walls, we will take our history of service with us.

We will remember the service projects done by our college service learning teams, the people we've helped in Rhode Island and internationally, and the many hours we've put into Khadarlis.

We won't forget the many friends we have among seniors and staff here at the Center as well.

The new building space is located within the First Tabernacle Church.While we're a settling in the new office, we won't be open for service.

Front of the First Tabernacle Church

So once again we would like to remind you that our new location is 105 Dodge Street, right near Classical and Central High School and Cranston Street.

Unfortunately, we won't be serving the community until the start of the new year on January 7th.

We just don't have the time or location set up to handle our donations. We're saddened that we won't be open during the Christmas holiday or New Year but it's out of our control!

Please share this, and let others know our new location on 105 Dodge Street!

Khadarlis Announces New Partnership With Bakery!

The best partnerships can come when you least expect them!

If you don't know, Khadarlis' Community Outreach Center  is our biggest program serving the greater Providence area. We partner with state community action agencies to provide free household goods to low-income and homeless Rhode Islanders moving into homes or apartments as well as disaster victims. 

A typical bread shipment from Calise Bakery

We didn't know we would be giving away free food, too!

We had a pleasant surprise when Calise Bakey contacted us and began donating bread to Khadarlis to spread to the community. 

We are now giving the bread to the local churches and hungry people!

Calise bakery drops the bread off once a week and we've been getting as many as 400-500 loaves to give to the hungry folks who show up. 

In fact so many people have shown up, that our sign up sheet is quickly getting full. Not only is it convenient for others to pick up bread, but Khadarlis is able to give something away daily.

Giving away this much bread isn't easy! Since we're currently located in the Lillian Shawn Feinstein Senior Center, we are in a basement. We have to get the bread all the way down to our office! Thankfully, the delivery man and our volunteers have been so helpful!

Our community is hungry! Loaves are leaving by the dozens. And they should be since we've been getting everything from rolls to onion bread. 

Just in case you were thinking about getting bread at our office, WAIT!!!

 We're moving into a new office on 105 Dodge Street! Unfortunately we won't be serving the community until the beginning of January!

Thank you for reading and have a safe holiday!

Khadarlis Community Thanksgiving Dinner

We're all excited to be home for the holidays, especially when we have a delicious turkey waiting for us!

Meet some of those who came!

Unfortunately, while each of us enjoys turkey with our families not everyone is able to.

Providence's unemployment and homeless rate rank among the highest U.S., and ever year hundreds of people can't afford to have a turkey. Worse, some people won't be able celebrate at all.

Thanks to efforts of local organizations and communities, we can bring Thanksgiving to those who need it most!

This past Thanksgiving, Khadarlis teamed up with SIXFIVE81 to bring hold a Thanksgiving dinner that was open to the public. It was an awesome success and the picture to the right illustrates some of the people who came by!

If you stopped by, you might even have spotted Senator Paul Jabour.

We want to give special thanks to our sponsors who were gracious enough to donate food for this event with less than an month's worth of time before it started. We also want to thank our volunteers and executive staff for planning an event like this.

Dinner was delicious! If you're curious about who was cooking, it was Khadarlis' very own President, Dharlis Johnson, who not only prepared the ingredients the evening before, but cooked them too. 

President Dharlis Johnson (left)

Khadarlis will keep serving the homeless and struggling people of Rhode Island. We hope to hold another Thanksgiving event next year.

But one organization can't do it alone!

We need readers and supporters like you! When we truly strive to help others, we're working to create stronger communities.

Please, visit our website and see what you can do to help. Every donation and share counts!

Public Health Expert, Dr. Radford Davis, visits Sierra Leone

Public health expert and friend of Khadarlis Dr. Radford Davis recently visited the only clinic in the entire Jimmi Bagbo chiefdom, where most of Khadarlis’ work in Sierra Leone is based,  in order to assess the clinic’s ability to respond to public health threats. His photographs, which can be viewed in full on his site, reveal a clinic that is severely strapped for resources.

Although the clinic has a dedicated staff of 17 local health care workers and volunteers, the clinic has no electricity and no running water. The medical lab is a small corner of the room with a scale, picnic tables, and a malaria antigen test kit. They do not have enough supplies to fill the lab’s single shelf. The mosquito screens on the doors and windows to the clinic have large holes in them. The latrines are simply holes in the ground.

Medical supplies are scarce. The Ministry of Health makes a delivery only once every three months, and even then, the clinic receives less than the bare minimum they need to protect the health of the villagers. They can take their patients’ blood pressure, run test their patients for malaria and urinary tract infections, but they do not have the antibiotic medications needed to treat these conditions. Furthermore, they do not have diagnostic tests or supplies that can be used to treat one of the region’s most critical health problems, Lassa Fever. 

Lassa Fever is a viral infection that humans contract through contact with rodents, such as the rats that live near the clinic’s latrines. Although it is treatable, many patients die because their caregivers cannot identify the virus quickly enough or simply do not have the antiviral medication.

In 2011, Khadarlis volunteers visited the clinic and brought them gloves, towels, bandages, blankets, first aid kits, gynecological examination tools, and thermometers. These donations have been immensely useful for the clinic staff. Even though the clinic staff lacks the supplies they need to combat infectious diseases in the region, they have several experienced midwives who help to deliver babies and are instrumental in the effort to educate local villagers about preventative care measures.

However, the Jimmi Bagbo clinic could accomplish much more if the staff had access to more medical supplies. After observing and photographing this clinic firsthand, Dr. Radford Davis has vowed to help the clinic get the support it needs and will be working in conjunction with Khadarlis to make these improvements happen.