Welcome to the first segment in NRI NOW‘s 2019 Year in Review for the town of North Smithfield.
The news website began covering North Smithfield in September, and that same day a story about Wright’s Dairy Farm earned widespread attention, garnering some 3,400 likes on the site.
The business, a fifth-generation family farm with over 100 years of producing and selling dairy and bakery products, was named Rhode Island’s 2019 Outstanding Dairy Farm by the Rhode Island Green Pastures Committee.
A release from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management dubbed the Woonsocket Hill Road business “one of our state’s finest dairy farms,” noting that there are more than 1,000 farms sprinkled across the state.
But they weren’t the only business in North Smithfield to attract some major praise in 2019.
In November, Michael Coyne, a 23-year-old Harrisville man living with autism and bipolar disorder, opened Red White & Brew, a coffee shop with a focus on inclusion.
NRI NOW covered the story in December, after the business was featured not only on national news, but also a television news program in Canada.
The story was widely shared on social media and “liked” more than 2,000 times on the site.
Over the next three days, we’ll continue to count down the top stories of 2019, calculated primarily by traffic to the website.
NRI NOW will continue to count down the top stories of 2019, calculated primarily by traffic to the website, through the end of the week.
