PROVIDENCE — When teachers returned last week to open the new school year at St. Pius V elementary school, they found the usual first day of school preparation: shiny, polished floors; stacks of textbooks; and sparkling clean classrooms with desks all in a row, ready for the students.
And then they saw how their lunch room – once an uninspiring and dank room with worn linoleum tucked off a back corridor behind the gym when they left the Elmhurst Avenue school in June for the summer – had been transformed into a clean, bright modern kitchen/meeting room with top quality cabinets, a sink and granite counter top, and a dishwasher.
“I’ve been a teacher for 37 years (29 in Providence public schools) and when I walked into this room...it was a moment when I really felt appreciated by the parents,” said fifth grade teacher Maureen Cohen. “I actually had tears in my eyes. It is a rare thing to feel as a teacher.”
The thankful and generous parent is Richard Pezzuco, co-owner with his brother Ronald of Pezzuco Construction of Johnston, who listened carefully last spring when School Principal Sister Mary Veronica, O.P. told him how she needed a new floor in the Teacher’s Room. But he didn’t stop at the floor. Pezzuco and his brother, along with 30 suppliers they asked to help started at the floor and kept on going.
“I saw the room and it was horrible,” Pezzuco said, while standing in the newly refurbished space. “I was very surprised by the poor shape it was in.”
Sister Mary Veronica said that during Pezzuco’s visit last spring, she told him all of her dreams for the room, which provides educators with a place to catch up on work, or to enjoy a break during the school day.
“I told her, ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll get it done,’ ” Pezzuco said.
“The teachers were so grateful,” Sister Mary Veronica said. “Whenever teachers ask for something it is always for the kids. I thought it was time that we do something for them. We have wonderful teachers who work hard. They should at least have a nice place to have lunch or get a coffee.”
On Friday, August 23, Father Augustine Judd, O.P., pastor of St. Pius V Church blessed the room and dedicated it in the memory of the Pezzuco’s late, oldest brother, Joseph R. Pezzuco Jr., who died four days before Christmas, Dec. 21, 1988. A plaque honoring Joseph Pezzuco is being placed on a wall in the remodeled room.
“He was a great older brother, a real role model,” Pezzuco said. “My brother, Ron, and I often talk about how good it would have been if it was the three of us in the company working together.”
