Steward Stories: Spotlight on Providence After School Alliance

Our “Steward Stories” series captures lessons learned from interviews with leaders of mature, purpose-built ecosystem intermediaries. An ecosystem steward is a boundary-spanning leader who goes beyond traditional out-of-school time (OST) system building to weave together the diverse people, places, and possibilities that shape a young person’s daily life. Rather than managing a single isolated network, stewards collaborate across K-12 schools, youth development programs, and workforce systems to build vibrant, equitable learning ecosystems. They drive systemic change from practice to policy by creating purpose-built intermediaries, developing scalable cross-system training tools, and championing “Future Features” of learning. These core priorities include promoting learner agency, institutionalizing “unwalled” schools that connect community resources to formal education, broadening the definition of educators to include informal mentors, and normalizing pathways for students to receive school credit or credentials for out-of-school learning.

The starting points, paths, and targets set by these stewards are as varied as the conditions and opportunities present within their communities. But they share similarities in vision and approach. Learn More Here.

By: Karen Pittman and Merita Irby

Founded in 2004 in Providence, Rhode Island, the Providence After School Alliance (PASA) is a nationally recognized intermediary that helped a mid-sized city reimagine itself as a coordinated learning campus — aligning schools, city agencies, and community organizations so young people could access high-quality learning opportunities beyond the school day.

PASA was designed to respond to a stark local challenge: in the early 2000s, statewide data revealed that nearly 70% of middle school students in Providence went home to empty houses. Supported by a Wallace Foundation planning process and championed by a newly elected mayor committed to youth voice and civic engagement, Providence set out to answer a bold question: What would afterschool look like if the city itself functioned as a coordinated learning system?

PASA’s signature innovation was the AfterZones: neighborhood-based learning “campuses” that clustered middle schools with youth-serving organizations, resulting in coordinated access to hands-on STEM, arts, sports, leadership, and enrichment. Young people shaped the design directly, making clear that they would “walk across the city for quality — but not cross the street for something boring.” PASA was one of the first OST intermediaries to adopt quality standards based on youth development principles. PASA later expanded its ecosystem approach into high school through The Hub, creating studios and pathways that connected youth with educators, community experts, cultural institutions, and industry mentors. This work helped pioneer one of the country’s early examples of out-of-school learning recognized for graduation credit, including through Rhode Island’s All Course Network — demonstrating what it looks like when community-based learning is treated as a true extension of education, not an optional add-on.

To date, PASA has served more than 23,000 Providence youth and helped stabilize opportunities in a city marked by frequent leadership transitions. Its ecosystem infrastructure has influenced afterschool and expanded-learning efforts in 30+ cities nationwide, including through networks such as Every Hour Counts.

PASA’s long-term value has been both practical and strategic: it has shown that ecosystem-building requires more than strong programs — it requires coordination, trust, shared systems, ongoing cultivation and a commitment to quality standards and professional development.

But its local operational challenges reflect the need for more sustainable public funding for ecosystem stewards. This important work was hard to sustain after the pandemic, especially with shifts in city, district, and PASA leadership (the founding executive director retired in 2021). As the number of programs serving teens dropped, PASA stepped in to directly provide services. The second executive director, wisely recruited from within, led the organization through the post-COVID era and then stepped down in 2025. An experienced OST intermediary executive was brought in as interim ED to help chart the next phase of PASA’s journey going back to reforge connections by focusing on its unique strengths: local trust, city partnerships, and community responsiveness.

Local Innovation, National Influence

Over the decades, PASA has been a leader in demonstrating the difference an afterschool system can make across the learning ecosystem. They were one of the first systems to negotiate transportation access for students, working with the district’s bus service provider to guarantee free transportation to and from programs. A 2010 Public/Private Ventures evaluation of AfterZone programs found that participants attended school more frequently, with attendance gains increasing for those who participated in both years. They also earned higher math grades on average — by about one-third of a letter grade. These results sparked PASA’s decision to expand to high school. [Wallace Foundation]

As PASA expanded its focus to the high school years, they were a leader in demonstrating what credit-for-learning could look like in out-of-school time. They helped to shape Rhode Island’s All Course Network (ACN), a statewide catalog that allows students to enroll in free, credit-bearing opportunities — including work-based learning and career credential pathways — expanding what “school credit” can include. In one pre-pandemic example, PASA collaborated with Roger Williams Park Zoo and Carousel Village, the Providence Public Library, and DownCity Design to deliver ACN-approved learning experiences, giving students access to hands-on, interest-driven learning led by community experts while earning credit.

Hillary Salmons — Community Organizer and Systems Builder with Grassroots Credibility

Hillary’s path to youth development and systems-building started long before Providence — in the places where she learned what community power really looks like. At 18, she left home for a fishing village off the coast of Newfoundland to run a summer camp, an early immersion in what it means to build trust and create opportunity in a tight-knit community. In college, she was drawn to organizing and community work, and during her time living in Japan she learned to mobilize resources and back community-led solutions — including work supporting refugees in Southeast Asia.

But it was in New York City — during the Koch-era fiscal crisis — that she sharpened her systems instincts, working alongside titans of youth development as part of a movement to strengthen grassroots nonprofits and school-community partnerships through initiatives like the Beacons.

By the time she landed in Providence, Hillary had a rare combination of street-level credibility and political fluency: she could move comfortably between the grassroots and the “systems,” translate across worlds, and leverage institutional dollars toward community-designed work. With a newly elected mayor who recognized the latent power of Providence’s youth activists, arts organizations, and neighborhood institutions, Hillary was ready to leverage a major funding opportunity into cultivating a learning ecosystem designed to last.

PASA Timeline

Forging Connections

2001 — Statewide data reveals nearly 70% of RI middle school youth lack adult supervision after school, catalyzing urgency around OST infrastructure.

2003 — Newly elected Mayor David Cicilline champions youth development and sees OST as a high-leverage strategy for improving outcomes without being trapped in school-system gridlock. The Wallace Foundation invests a $1M planning grant, and Providence convenes a broad cross-sector design process (100+ stakeholders) to map assets and design an intermediary model.

2004 — Wallace provides an additional $5M implementation grant for scaling a citywide system. PASA is formally established as an independent nonprofit; Hillary Salmons becomes founding ED.

2004-2005 — PASA establishes a foundational operating principle: it is not a provider — it is the organization responsible for aligning the ecosystem around access, quality, and coordination.

Strengthening Connections

2005 — PASA launches the AfterZone initiative, clustering middle schools and providers into neighborhood “campuses” with shared schedules, transportation supports, and coordinated enrollment.

2005-08 — AfterZones expand citywide, reaching five sites and proving the model can scale across diverse neighborhoods.

Mid-late 2000s — Youth voice becomes a defining feature of design: students make clear they will “walk across the city for quality — but not cross the street for something boring.”

2006-2010 — PASA builds long-term political durability by codifying a standing agreement with city leadership — a mechanism renewed after elections that protects the ecosystem from turnover and keeps the mayor deeply tied to PASA’s success.

Late 2000s — PASA strategically stabilizes its funding base through 21st Century grants, anticipating the end of Wallace dollars and the lack of state investment in OST.

Sustaining Connections

2011 — PASA launches The Hub, bringing its ecosystem model into high schools through studios, pathways, and mentorship-based learning experiences.

2010s — The Hub expands partnerships with educators, community experts, and industry mentors — strengthening career-connected learning and building bridges between OST and graduation pathways.

2016 — PASA integrates Hub learning with Rhode Island’s All Course Network, helping establish one of the nation’s earliest credit-bearing OST pathways.

2010s — PASA becomes a widely-cited national example of community-based intermediary work; its model influences efforts in dozens of cities through Every Hour Counts and other networks.

2020 — COVID forces PASA and the OST field nationally to shift into emergency response modes: food distribution, crisis support, and rapid pivots to virtual/outdoor delivery.

Scaling Connections

2021 — PASA returns to in-person programming and continues direct service through multiple school sites. Hillary Salmons retires. Ann Durham, with PASA since 2014, assumes the ED role.

2021-2023 — Increased funding, including $350,000 in congressionally delegated funds to support STEAM summer camps, enables PASA to offer 820 free afterschool and summer programs serving 5,100 youth. Invests heavily in rebuilding Providence’s youth development workforce and provider network following post-pandemic staffing shortages and program closures. Actively seeks new program providers, training them on youth development principles. Collaborates with District to align OST programs with new priorities.

2024 — PASA is recognized as a Bank of America Neighborhood Builders awardee.

2025 — Ann Durham steps down and Eric Gurna assumes interim role. Discussions underway re: balance between direct delivery versus ecosystem-wide functions as PASA works to stay nimble and responsive to the most pressing community needs.

Karen Pittman and Merita Irby are co-founders of Knowledge to Power Catalysts and managing partners of the Alliance for Youth Thriving. This post draws from Learning Ecosystem Intermediaries: Cultivating Connections Across Systems & Ecosystems to Help Youth Thrive*, co-authored with Merita Irby and commissioned by Remake Learning (January 2026).*