Keep Your Head Up: Coventry Teacher to Chair 5K Walk in May

By Faye Zuckerman, Brain Injury Association of Rhode Island

COVENTRY, RI — Even with her hands full raising three children and working full time as a high school English teacher in Coventry, East Greenwich’s Katie Cioe has taken on the lofty task of chairing the upcoming 5K Walk for the Brain Injury Association of Rhode Island. The Keep Your Head Up 5K Walk will be on Saturday, May 20, at Colt State Park. (Registration begins at 9 a.m. and the Walk starts at 10 a.m.) Tickets are $25/$35 day of.

She has taken on this important role because several members of her family and some of her students have been coping with the consequences of a traumatic brain injury.

“I have seen how they have been affected and struggled. That is why the Brain Injury Association of Rhode Island is important to our state,” Cioe said. “Through the nonprofit’s work, it has made me passionate about the imperative need to increase awareness so people with such an injury can learn how to cope with it and improve the quality of their life.”

She added that she has been impressed with the dedication BIARI has made to prevention, education and support for survivors, their families and caregivers. She discovered BIARI after her husband, Nicholas Cioe, joined the board of directors. He is a professor of rehabilitative counseling at Assumption College in Worcester.

Photo Caption: From left, Debra Sharpe, executive director of the Brain Injury Association of Rhode Island, poses with East Greenwich’s Nicholas Cioe, BIARI board member, and Katie Cioe, chair of the committee planning the Keep Your Head Up 5K Walk on Saturday, May 20, at Colt State Park. The Brain Injury Association of RI, based in East Providence, will benefit from the event.