ANNUAL MEETING AND LUNCHEON
BY DON DOUCETTE
We enjoyed with you our like-minded conversation and lighthouse interaction around the table during yesterday’s wonderful Friends of Pomham Rocks Lighthouse annual meeting at the Hillside Country Club in Rehoboth, Massachusetts.
Particularly taken by the young refugee lady from Ukraine who rose and described her present situation as a new resident living beside Narragansett Bay in Riverside, Rhode Island – that the beauty of our lighthouse is personally appreciated daily by her as a beacon of welcome to a tiny local portion of our blessed America.
Pomham Rocks Lighthouse remains as a basic aid to marine navigation and signals, as well within its shadow, a safe harbor locally for the downtrodden as she has found a safe and secure home within Rhode Island.
The combined efforts provided by the Friends of Pomham Rocks Lighthouse have witnessed and dispensed a reality of HOPE for this young woman – the essence of Rhode Island’s state motto, is it not?
What a way to celebrate the life of a newly restored lighthouse amid the thoughts of communal hospitality and what a blessing to soberly consider when seated in several weeks fully appreciating the actual reason and meaning for our Thanksgiving tables!
For a number of years prior to World War One, immigrants from southern Europe found their way via ships to the Port of Providence with Pomham Rocks Lighthouse helping to “guide the way along the Bay” – and I surmise that many present residents of Rhode Island can trace their lineage to people’s who arrived to America in this way via Providence’s Pier One.
Pomham Rocks Lighthouse has stood…and stands as a solitary and everlasting witness to these many events.
My appreciation,
Don Doucette
Friends of Pomham Rocks Lighthouse