Tag Archives for Pawtucket Rotary Club

Passages – Life and Times of Morris Nathanson

Published in RINews Today on October 7, 2023

Painter, Illustrator and Restaurant/Hospitality Designer Morris Nathanson’s artist studio is just a stone’s throw away from his childhood home on Japonica Street in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Growing up poor during the depression in his Pleasant View neighborhood, settled by Armenian and Syrian immigrants who worked in the surrounding mills, he would see his home and surrounding properties demolished to make way for Interstate 95. This made him skeptical of the policy of Eminent Domain, as it left his family and neighborhood languishing for years in expected dread of demolition, years before it was to occur, destroying the spirit of his neighborhood. It was this singular policy that encouraged his work in historic preservation.

Morris, raised in a Jewish household, was a lifelong adult member of Temple Beth El on Providence’s East Side.  He practiced his faith throughout his life including the orthodox values taught to him by his mother. 

Morris, a spitting image of Mark Twain, or maybe even Albert Einstein, because of his distinctive head of hair, always wore colorful bow ties, considered by many to be his trademark look. He was a man who made a definitive impact on the international art and design scene. In the City of Pawtucket, he was the force that initiated the City’s art scene by bringing the strategy of adaptive reuse of underutilized and vacant mills to city officials, a concept he learned from his years of working in New York City as a restaurant designer and watching the development and transformation of the industrial mill buildings in SOHO.

My friend, Morris, passed away peacefully at the ripe old age of 95 in September, one year ago.

Over two decades, this writer would visit Morris on Saturday afternoons sitting in his living room drinking cups of freshly brewed coffee. The cozy room is surrounded by large bookcases jam packed with literary classics, architectural, art and design books, and walls filled with artwork he created throughout the years, and of course the piles of newspapers, specifically the New York Times, Boston Globe and Providence Journal, that he read daily.  We would talk about Pawtucket, world events, and he would reminiscence about his amazing life’s journey from his childhood in Pawtucket, to the international world he lived in later in his life.

The War Years

Morris was motivated to enlist in the military service because of the Nazi’s policy of exterminating all Jews. His family was aware that they lost many of their relatives in Europe as they were transported to the concentration camps where they perished.  

Walking into the Pawtucket post office on Montgomery Street, registering for the draft at age 17, with the required parental approval to enlist in the Navy, he, like many young boys, left Pawtucket East to fight in World War II.

This memory never faded from his mind.

After his basic training at Sampson Naval Base in upstate New York, half of his class of Navy recruits were assigned to the U.S.S. Catamount (LSD 17) and the other half were sent to the U.S.S. Indianapolis. The U.S.S. Indianapolis was a Portland-class heavy cruiser which was charged with a top-secret mission – to deliver the uranium and other components for “Little Boy,” the first nuclear weapon to be used in combat, to Tinian Naval Base.  The bomb would be dropped on Hiroshima the following week.  After the ship’s departure to the Philippines for training duty, it was sunk by a Japanese submarine. Sinking in just 12 minutes.  Out of the 1,195 crewmen onboard, only 316 survived.  The survivors faced injuries, dehydration, and shark attacks. It was the luck of the draw for Morris to be assigned to serve on U.S.S. Catamount, and not the U.S.S. Indianapolis.

Morris remembered the U.S.S. Catamount among hundreds of naval ships in Tokyo Bay, carrying special equipment to be used during the occupation of Japan. His ship would ultimately not have to participate in the all-out ground invasion of Japan because of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  His ship was one of 260 vessels of the Allied navies present in Tokyo Bay when Japanese officials on the U.S.S. Missouri signed the declaration of surrender on Sept. 2, 1945.

With Japan’s surrender, the members of Morris’ crew were sent on shore to rout out any Japanese soldiers hiding in caves.  A terrifying moment for Morris occurred in the caves, not from meeting enemy soldiers, but realizing he was lost and he couldn’t read the signage written in Japanese. Fortunately, fate smiled on Morris and brought him out to safety. 

On a light note, during his Naval service Morris was recognized by his crewmates for his artistic talent.  He was always selected to do any assignments involving illustrations.  His favorite project was designing Mother’s Day cards for his shipmates.

Fighting Antisemitism and Civil Rights for All

Experience aboard the U.S.S. Catamount gave this young medic his first awareness of systemic racism.  Witnessing first hand man’s biases and prejudices motivated him throughout seventy-five years of his long life to fight for the equal rights of all.  Morris’s civil rights activism solidified his belief that human rights are essential to life and recognized that they must be consistently fought for.  Which he did.

Morris participated in the Freedom Rides of 1961, Dr. Martin Luther King’s campaigns in Selma and Birmingham, Alabama, and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  For anyone not familiar with the dangers and complexities of these marches – these courageous civil rights activists were subjected to threats, beatings, mass arrests, bombings and even murder.  Our criminal justice system in the 60s more often than not, turned a blind eye to the plight of those protesting against these injustices.

When Morris was discharged in 1945, like so many servicemen, he took advantage of the GI Bill, enrolling at Curry College in downtown Boston.  During his second year, with his best friend, Donnie Shear, they began to seek out Colleges, “anywhere warm” he would say.  They ultimately transferred to University of Miami.

At the University of Miami, he earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Theatre and Fine Arts.  He was a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi, a Jewish fraternity on campus.  He later went on to the New School for Social Research in New York City to study Theatre.  At that time, he wanted to become a playwright and director for the New York stage but fate would bring him back to Rhode Island with a call from his mother asking him to return to help her provide for his younger siblings.

Finding a Niche in the Design Sector

Ultimately, the young college graduate took his first job as a social worker in Providence.  Morris worked for two years in the Charles Street neighborhood assisting struggling Italian families and although his supervisor offered to send him to graduate school in Boston to get a Bachelor of Social Work degree, he instead decided to follow his dreams and passion (suggested by his high school teachers) to become an artist.

Rhode Island would be pivotal to Morris by guiding him into his new profession.  His first design job, sort of like a one degree of separation, began when his brother Abe decided not to accept a job offered by the Providence-based Paramount Restaurant Supply Co.  When Morris heard this news, he went and applied for the job the next day and got it. This job officially propelled him into the restaurant design sector, working with the best, David Friedman, owner of Paramount Restaurant Supply Co.

Friedman had one of the largest design shops on the East Coast. The company designed case goods for numerous department stores in New York City, which had luncheonettes and restaurants.  Interesting enough, Morris’ first designs were drawn on paper napkins in front of his new clients.  However, that was very short lived as Morris immediately undertook developing a serious design department.

At age 24, Morris, head of the design team at Paramount, developed and designed the first franchise in American history, Dunkin Donuts. While working with Friedman he also designed restaurants in the pavilions of the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York.

When Morris left Paramount Restaurant Supply Co, he retained his relationship with Friedman which became a lifelong friendship. His artistic flair and design talents were brought out in his new company, Morris Nathanson Design, ultimately attracting clients throughout  Rhode Island, the U.S., and later, internationally.   

His most notable design projects locally include Hemenway’s, Ruth Chris Steak House, 22 Bowen, restaurants and bars for the Inn at Castle Hill, Capital Grill, Pizzeria Uno, Joe’s American Bar & Grill, Mills Tavern, Waterman Grill, Red Stripe and for those who still remember, the beloved Ming Garden and McGarry’s Restaurant in downtown Providence.  He also had clients in the legal, medical and retail sectors.

Well-known clients outside the Ocean State included Nathan’s Famous, B.B. King Blues Club, Carmine’s, Docks, Rue 57, Oceana, Virgil’s and Angelo and Maxie’s in Manhattan and the Hyde Park, New York-based Eveready Diner featured on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-in and Dives” television series.  Another accolade for the Eveready Diner is the 1995 visit of President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin to the diner for a meal during their summit held at the summer cottage of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose property is across the street from the diner. 

Morris was also instrumental in the ongoing development of Johnson & Wales University.  School leaders asked him to visit the renowned chef, Louis Szathmary, owner of The Bakery, in Chicago and a New York Times best-selling cookbook author, “The Chefs Secret Cookbook,” to review his extensive culinary collection which filled two Brownstones in Chicago.  Morris persuaded Szathmary to donate his entire collection of culinary memorabilia  to Johnson & Wales University and convinced the University to build a museum to house thousands of the historic artifacts that he so graciously donated.

An Early Advocate for Mill Adaptive Reuse

Morris did not forget or leave his old Pawtucket neighborhood.  With his offices in Providence, he would later return to his roots in the blue-collar community of Pawtucket and purchase the decaying Rhode Island Cardboard Manufacturing complex, now known as Blackstone Studios, just across the street from his former high school, East High, now Tolman High. 

Morris’s historic mill sits by Pawtucket’s Veterans Memorial Amphitheatre, an outdoor music venue he designed at Roosevelt and Exchange Street. Then the Exchange Street Bridge was later renamed the Morris Nathanson Bridge in his honor in 2010.

Over the years, Morris and his wife Phyllis renovated the former manufacturing mill building (ultimately located in Pawtucket’s 307-acre Arts and Entertainment District) to become the new headquarters of Morris Nathanson Design and also created artist studios and lofts, gathering a community of artists to live and work.  These artists and craft persons, residing in his mill, would become independent contractors of his design firm and would be hired to work with his company on many restaurant design projects. His clients loved this concept because it made it easy to manage all their design needs in one building. 

With the experiences learned in redeveloping their mill, Morris and his wife, Phyllis, took on developing the former Lebanon Knitting Mill and Vesta Underwear which sat on the banks of the Blackstone River.  The project is now known as Riverfront Lofts which houses 59 live-work condominiums for artists.  The success of this project was unrivaled in the state.

The Nathansons were leaders encouraging other artists to rehabilitate vacant buildings throughout Pawtucket and statewide. As an early advocate for mill adaptive reuse, Morris was in the forefront of developing Pawtucket as a highly visible and respected arts and entertainment center.  He led the efforts in the blue-collar community to change to zoning ordinances (locally and statewide) to assist developers to rehab vacant and underutilized mills to allow live-work spaces.

While residing in Rhode Island, Morris has lived his life on the international stage as a designer of award-winning restaurants, concert spaces, and hospitality venues. He was widely recognized as the father of modern restaurant and hospitality design.

A Prolific Fine Artist Who Made a Difference  

A lifetime member of the Providence Art Club, Morris was a highly respected and prolific fine artist, with numerous exhibitions in Providence and New York. The Pawtucket native’s paintings, prints, wood sculptures, and drawings reflect nearly a century of work, and trace his truly extraordinary and vibrant life through bold colors and iconography that pulled from personal history.

Mr. Nathanson was a founding board member of Trinity Repertory Company. One of Trinity Rep’s earliest set designers, he was also in charge of its relocation to the Emery’s Majestic Theater (now the Lederer Theater Center), which has been the theater’s home for over 50 years.   

Among his many activities in Rhode Island, Morris served as a member of the Providence Historic Commission and the Pawtucket Armory Association, he played a critical role in securing the historic armory from the State of Rhode Island and oversaw the design and build of the Sandra Feinstein Gamm Theatre and the creation the Jacqueline Walsh School for the Arts. He also offered his time and expertise to the City of Pawtucket’s Riverfront Commission, the Pawtucket 2020 Committee, the Pawtucket Foundation, and the Pawtucket Arts Collaborative.

Morris also found time to design and teach courses at the Rhode Island School of Design, and served as a design consultant to Providence Mayor Joseph Paolino Jr.  He also served as a commissioner under the direction of Antoinette Downing on the Providence Historic Commission.

Morris is the recipient of numerous personal awards and recognitions, including honorary doctorates from Johnson & Wales University and Rhode Island College. Morris has been inducted into the Pawtucket Hall of Fame, and been awarded the Pawtucket Foundation Heritage Award, the Arts and Business Council of Rhode Island’s Small Business Award, and the Pell Award from the Trinity Repertory Company for his life-time contribution to the arts. He was awarded the Paul Harris Award, Rotary’s highest honor by the Pawtucket Rotary Club.  

Morris has also been designated as a ‘Thought Leader’ by the American Society of Interior Designers, considered to be the best in the design community. 

Upon his retirement in 2008, Morris was asked by Boston University Culinary School to donate over 400 hand-drawn renderings of restaurants, hotel and resort projects, to become part of the new “Morris Nathanson Design Collection” at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.  Boston University recognized Morris’s lifelong work by calling him “the pioneer” of modern restaurant design. 

The Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center also houses Martin Luther King’s letters, papers and archives, a fitting tribute to Morris’ years as a civil rights advocate.

With the international acclaim and recognition that Morris has received in his 95 years of living, Morris always would tell you where he comes from Pawtucket, a man who never forgot his roots.

Morris never consider himself retired; he just had a job as a full time artist.  

Morris is survived by his loving and devoted wife, Phyllis Van Orden Nathanson, and their son, John David Nathanson, and Josh Nathanson and Kim Nathanson Arsenault, from his marriage to Roxie Sgouros, along with four grandchildren, Emma, Sarah, Lily, Adrian and his sister Rachel Schuchman.

Morris’ legacy as an artist and designer lives on in his three children.  Josh and Kim are both involved in restaurant and hospitality design while John David is a following his love and passion creating animation films at DreamWorks in California.

Supporting Young Artists

Morris says that he knew that he would become an artist at the tender age of six years old, remembering that he would draw on the walls.  As he got older, he continued to sharpen his drawing skills. An elementary school teacher identified him as having artistic abilities and faculty at Tolman High School encouraged him to follow his passion for the arts.

To recognize the encouragement that Morris received throughout his schooling, Morris’s family has created “The Morris Nathanson Tribute Fund,” a scholarship supporting Rhode Island students aged K-12 to participate in Saturday youth classes at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) which he himself attended as a young boy.  The family hopes that the Rhode Island community will give generously to the “Morris Nathanson Tribute Fund” at RISD so that poor children with artistic talent may have the same opportunity to explore and cultivate these talents as he once did. 

Donations can be mailed to:  Morris Nathanson Scholarship Fund, Rhode Island School of Design, Office of Institutional Advancement, 20 Washington Place, Providence, RI 02903. 

By Herb Weiss and Phyllis Van Orden Nathanson

Herb Weiss, LRI -12, is a Pawtucket-based writer who has covered aging, health care and medical issues for over 43 years.  To purchase his books, Taking Charge: Collected Stories on Aging Boldly and a sequel, compiling weekly published articles, go to herbweiss.com.

Phyllis Van Orden Nathanson, wife of Morris Nathanson, continues her work as an arts advocate.

Rotary Gears Up to Eradicate Polio

Published in the Woonsocket Call on October 16, 2016

Just days ago, Louis A. Marciano came to St. Paul’s Church on a mission to get his fellow Pawtucket Rotarians more involved in Rotary International’s efforts to create a polio-free world. Marciano, a former Mount Pleasant High School football player, a coach, a World War 11 veteran who fought in the Pacific Theater and a Rotarian for over 44 years, came to publicize the upcoming World Polio Day on October 24 and give an update on the international service organization’s efforts to eradicate Polimyelitis (polio).

Polio is a paralyzing and potentially fatal infectious disease that still threatens children in some parts of the world. The poliovirus invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours. It can strike at any age but mainly affects children under five. Polio is incurable, but completely vaccine-preventable. The infectious disease is found mostly in lower-income countries where poor sanitation and limited access to clean water facilitate the spread of the virus.

A Call for Action at
the Pawtucket Rotary Club

Marciano’s calls for assistance in raising funds to pay for polio inoculations for children and ratcheting up the awareness for Rotary’s efforts is not new. For over four decades, the former Rotary club president District 7950 Governor, has taken his fund raising campaign to end polio to 66 clubs in Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts. His efforts has received attention from his national headquarters, too. The North Providence Rotarian cherishes the Soccer Ball award “Kick Polio out of Africa” presented to him in 1998 for his efforts to eradicate Poliomyelitis

Some say that it may well “Takes a Village” to marshal the resources needed to make a world-wide impact. Over 1.2 million Rotary members belonging to 34,000 clubs world-wide work together to raise funds, advocate for government support, serve as volunteers to help immunize children, and raise awareness in their communities, said Marciano to his audience of Pawtucket Rotarians.

At the podium, the Cranston resident rattled off specifics as to why this global effort is important and is succeeding. Ending polio will save lives, is a very good investment, and most important is achievable, says Marciano.

Marciano notes, India is a prime example of one of the greatest Rotary International’s achievements in wiping out polio. “There were zero cases of polio in 2010 in India and they have been polio-free for nearly six years,” he says, noting that the World Health Organization has officially certified India polio-free in 2014. [According to Devin Thorpe in his March 15, 2014 article published in Forbes, in the 1980s there were approximately 150,000 cases of polio every year in India]

Marciano also announced the upcoming fourth annual world Polio Day event, co-hosted with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to be held on Oct. 24. The event streaming live from CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, is expected to bring together more than 50,000 viewers around the world to learn from celebrities and experts about the progress to eradicate polio. For information about World Polio, go to http://www.endpolio.org.

While winding down his talk, Marciano acknowledges that there is still work to do but Rotary is moving closer to its goal of finally wiping polio from the face of the earth.

Carol Pandak, Director of Rotary’s PolioPlus program, agrees with Marciano’s assessment. “For more than 30 thirty years, Rotary has harnessed the dedication of community leaders around the world in support of polio eradication. When we started this effort, nearly 1,000 children a day were paralyzed by this disease. Today, there have been only 27 cases [Afghanistan (8); Nigeria (4); Pakistan (15)] in the whole world. Rotary remains fully committed to this important effort until every child is protected from this disease.”

From the Beginning

Rotary’s effort to eradicate polio began in 1979, with a multi-year project to immunize six million children in the Philippines. The international service organizations, “PolioPlus program, was established in 1985.

As indicated by the “plus” in PolioPlus, Rotarians also provide support for related health services, such as distributing Vitamin A and zinc tablets, providing bed nets to prevent malaria, assisting with preventative inoculations for other diseases, including measles, rubella, mumps, tuberculous, and other childhood diseases. The “plus” also means a system of advocacy and fundraising, and infrastructure and partnerships that will support the fight against infectious disease long after polio is gone.

Rotary also works closely with partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), including the World Health Organization (WHO), the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the governments of the world in this public health initiative.

Today, Rotary has given more than $1.6 billion to immunize more than two billion children against polio in 125 countries to wipe the infectious disease from the face of the earth. It is estimated that Rotary’s advocacy efforts have played a role in decisions by countries to contribute more than $7.2 billion to the effort.

Rotary’s polio initiative has also caught the attention of others. As far back as 2008, one of America’s biggest philanthropists came to the table to fight the war against polio. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that every dollar Rotary committed to polio eradication would be matched two-to-one by the Foundation up to $35 million a year through 2018. Since this Foundation began its partnership with Rotary more than $2 billion has been contributed to Rotary’s polio eradication effort.

These funds help to provide much-needed operational support, medical personnel, laboratory equipment.

Public figures and celebrities have also joined Bill & Melinda Gates as ambassadors to help educate the public about polio through public service announcements, social media and public appearances. They include: Kristen Bell and Archie Panjabi; WWE superstar John Cena; supermodel Isabeli Fontana; Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu; action movie star Jackie Chan; boxing great Manny Pacquiao; pop star Psy; golf legend Jack Nicklaus; conservationist Jane Goodall; premier violinist Itzhak Perlman; Grammy Award winners A.R. Rahman; Angelique Kidjo and Ziggy Marley; and peace advocate Queen Noor of Jordan. These ambassadors help educate the public about polio through public service announcements, social media and public appearances.

Until polio is eradicated, all countries remain at risk of outbreaks, says Marciano.

Experts say that $1.5 billion is urgently needed to sustain the polio eradication initiative. Without full funding and political will power, polio could return to previously polio-free countries, putting children at risk contracting this paralyzing disease. From every corner of the globe Rotarians are gearing up on October 24 to garner support to wipe polio out, once and for all.

Some Simple Resolutions Can Better Your Life

Published in Pawtucket Times, January 4, 2014

Every year we see the Times Square ball swiftly drop as a million or so revelers loudly count down to one at the stroke of midnight. Also, we traditionally make New Year Resolutions to accomplish in the coming year to perform acts of kindness and for self-improvement.

Making a resolution for positive change goes back for eons. According to Wikipedia, the act of making a resolution can be documented in Mesopotamia (the territory of modern-day Iraq). Babylonians made promises to their stone deities to start off a new year by returning borrowed goods and paying off debts.

The free internet encyclopedia also notes that the Romans even carried out this tradition by making promises to Janus, the God of beginnings and transitions (for whom the month January is named). Knights during the Medieval era, from the 5th to 15th century, took a “peacock vow” after the Christmas season to re-affirm their commitment to knightly virtues of honor, courtesy love and courtesy.

Wikipedia also reports that even “watch services” held late on New Year’s Eve, also provided an opportunity for Christian parishioners to review the past year and make confessions and prepare for the New Year by prayer. Even Judaism’s High Holidays, from Rosh Hashanah ending with Yom Kipper, the Day of Atonement, gives worshipers an opportunity to reflect on their wrongdoings over the year to seek forgiveness and to prepare for the upcoming year, adds the internet website.

Memorable New Year Resolutions

Zoe Mintz, of the International Business Times, posted her thoughts about New Year Resolutions just hours before 2014, on the New York-based digital global publication’s web. Like clockwork, many of the nation’s newspapers and magazines, including Mintz, printed articles detailing interesting, inspirational and unusual resolutions from prominent people, from movies stars (they usually tweet) artists, politicians, writers, and corporate leaders.

Mintz details some well-thought out New Year Resolutions from people who you may well know.

“Let our New Year’s resolution be this: We will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word.” — Goran Persson, served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1996 to 2006

“New Year’s resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.” — James Agate, British diarist and critic.

“I made no resolutions for the new year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.” — Anaïs Nin, an American author, ‘

“One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: to rise above the little things.” — John Burroughs, an American naturalist and essayist important in the evolution of the U.S conservation movement.

“I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the years.” — Henry Moore, an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art

“What the New Year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the New Year.” — Vern McLellan, author of Wise Words and Quote.

“Follow your passions, believe in karma, and you won’t have to chase your dreams; they will come to you.” — Randy Pausch, American professor of computer science and human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is author of the “Last Lecture.”

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” — Mother Teresa, an Albanian-born, Indian Roman Catholic Religious Sister who founded the Missionaries of Charity which in 2012 consisted of over 4,500 sisters in 133 countries.

“If you asked me for my New Year resolution, it would be to find out who I am.” — Cyril Cusack, an Irish actor, who appeared in numerous films and television productions in a career lasting more than 70 years.

Everyday Resolutions

Resolutions may inspire or be a little bit ethereal, as detailed in the above listing compiled by Mintz. Simply put, our personal New Year’s resolutions help us cope with daily challenges to improve health, personal finances and relationships, that is to enhance our quality of life.

Many of your family and friends will be making their 2014 New Year’s resolutions to improve their health by eating healthy foods, losing weight or ratcheting up their exercise regimen. Everyone knows someone whose has made a resolution to either drink or smoke less, or not at all.

As the New Year approaches a person may say “Life’s too short,” when they begin to craft their personal resolutions. Attitude adjustments may well occur, when the person resolves to see “a glass half full rather than half empty,” making a commitment for the coming year to become a more positive person, one who looks forward to living life to the fullest. Even some may explore ways to reduce the stress in their lives.

A 2014 New Year resolution for others may just be to dig themselves out of credit card debt (cut those cards in half), regularly put money away for retirement, invest in the stock market or even to find a more satisfying job that pays better than their current one.

You might even see college students making their 2014 resolution to study harder to get that “A.” Some baby boomers and seniors may even chose to make this year the time to enroll at a local College or University to get a bachelor’s or graduate degree, or go to just learn new or sharpen up their existing skills.

For many, life may have become too routine and predictable, pushing them to schedule a trip to exotic places in the New Year. Some may choose to watch less television, committing to put their leisure time to a better use in 2014. One might resolve to become a volunteer at the local food kitchen, or helping the homeless, or even joining civic groups, like the Pawtucket Rotary Club or Lions club, or the Masons, to reach out to their community. Spending time helping those in need can also be a benefit for those volunteering – learning new skills, meeting new friends, advancing your career, or even improving mental and physical health.

New Year’s resolutions even help a person focus where their time, money and energy is directed. Everyone knows someone who is resolving to spend quality time in 2014 with family members. Some may even make resolutions to get engaged or married their long-time partner or to even begin a family.

With Christmas becoming so commercial, some may well make New Year resolutions that will push them away from materialistic pleasures, to exploring their spirituality.

Using Technology to Keep Resolutions

New technology can help keep us on track with keeping our 2014 New Year’s Resolutions. With the growing popularity of cell phones (iPhone and Android) thousands of self-help apps are now becoming available on app stores for IOS and Android cell phones, reports Business Reporter Victor Luckerson, in an article published on New Year’s Day on Time.com.

Luckerson details apps that will keep you on track with keeping your 2014 New Years resolutions. Here is a small sampling:

For learning the basics of a foreign language to prepare for a vacation, Duolingo helps you to quickly learn the basics. Users can easily review lessons in vocabulary, pronunciation, and basic grammar. Currently Duolingo offers lessons in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German and Italian. Available for iPhone and Android.

MyQuitCoach was created to help you keep cigarettes at arms length. The app uses data to help people curb their bad habit by allowing users to input how often they smoke and when they have their cravings. This information allows short and long-term goals to be set, enabling the smoker to reduce their daily cigarette use. Tying results to both Facebook and Twitter can increase support from social media friends. Available for iPhone.

For those who require motivation to go to their neighborhood gym, MapMyFitness is just the app for you. The app tracks 600 different fitness activities, from running, to ballroom dancing, to even walking the dog. With this app you can even map out effective jogging routes. It even offers a social component that allows your friends to motivate you to exercise from within the app. Available for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry.

For resolutions to tighten your belt to improve your personal finances, check out DailyCost. The app easily allows you to closely check in going and outgoing money in all you bank accounts. Moreover, you can easily log in all your daily expenses, too, categorizing them within seconds. Weekly and monthly spending charts allow you to closely review where you spend your money. Available for iPhone.

Finally here’s an app to help you accomplish your resolution goals. Simply put, Lift helps you track how often you complete your tasks that you resolve to complete and rewards you with virtual check marks for achieving. Tasks can be drinking more water, praying, and other habits you want to change. App users who pursue the same goals can support each other via discussion groups. Available for iPhone and Android.

For this columnist, my 2014 New Year’s Resolutions (like many) revolve around health, financial and family. I resolve to become healthier by losing weight, eating healthier foods, and increasing my visits to the local YMCA; to get my financial house in order; and to spend more time with family and good friends. Maybe I might even write a book. As to my success, I will keep my fingers crossed.

Herb Weiss, LRI ’12, is a Pawtucket-based writer who covers aging, health care and medical issues. He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.