Humans of Cranston is a recurring column showcasing the stories of Cranston community members’ community involvement, diversity, and unique life perspectives.

Tiffanie Robles is a 33-year-old mother of four children and a job coach with Fedcap’s Easterseals Rhode Island.

I have been working for a branch under Fedcap for about two and a half years – we're called Easterseals Rhode Island. We work with adults who have learning differences: we help them to find meaningful employment in their communities, and we do direct support where we can just be hanging out with a participant, reading mail, helping them do paperwork, taking them out in the community, different things like that. It’s really wholesome; I love the job. I love being a part of someone’s life as a resource to help them.

I’ve been in Cranston for about four years now. I moved from Providence right after COVID, and it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve made for my kids and my family, to be in a better community. Cranston is really welcoming and everywhere you go, any store, y’know, everyone has a big smile on their face, and someone’s always trying to help or has a good attitude and positive vibes. It’s the best vibes. So, I love Cranston for it.

I’ve been very thankful to raise my kids in Cranston. The community that comes together, we’ve kind of grown as a family, even if it’s between playdates with the kids and their friends, everyone is so welcoming, and the community is so safe. You feel safe and welcome, even at a playground, you might not know any of the parents, but we’re all there keeping every kid safe and working together. I really love it.

When moving into Cranston, my kids were going to Gladstone in the original building when it was up, and we were walking-distance, so it was nice to walk through the community and see the same faces every day and get really comfortable with my neighbors and the kids around the neighborhood, and we do a lot of events together. Like, if it’s birthday parties or even trampoline parks, we try to get the kids together whenever we can, because it’s really important.

My work with Fedcap has given me a wider range of view of life and how beautiful it can be, and just having patience with people and wanting to encourage people to be better or to want to do things in life, so it’s been really gratifying to be able to transition that to my home life and teach the kids the value of life and wanting to be successful and keep pushing forward, and the mental health side of things; it’s really important for me to show my kids that every day’s gonna be a different day, but we’ve gotta remember we’re trying, we’re moving forward, and we just keep moving forward.

The second season of this project has been made possible by the Rhode Island Department of Health and the efforts of the OneCranston Health Equity Zone of Comprehensive Community Action, Inc. in partnership with the Cranston Herald and Timothy McFate. The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of Humans of Cranston participants do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the aforementioned parties. The presented stories are voluntarily provided, unpaid, and given verbatim except for correcting grammatical errors. 

Want to nominate a Cranston resident to be featured? Email JB at jfulbright@comcap.org.