Free Pancakes Start A Movement Sizzling

Xavier Payne walked by a clearing on Shelton Avenue and saw a small group of people preparing food under a canvas awning.

He wandered over for a short stack of pancakes — and entered a new weekly communal happening, inspired by the Black Panthers, that nourishes Newhallville with free food, clothes, and chess and sewing lessons.

Payne was one of the first in a slow stream of kids who took advantage Sunday morning of the free food, books, and clothing up for grabs at Shelton Avenue and Hazel Street — part of an effort to encourage self-sufficiency and collaboration within the black community in Newhallville.

Maurice ​“Blest” Peters and Yancey ​“Brother Born” Horton have spearheaded that effort for the past 11 weeks. They have gathered at the corner adjacent the Farmington Canal Trail on Shelton Avenue, pouring batter onto a hot griddle, giving away clothes, and gathering volunteers to teach skills including sewing and chess.

The area used to be called the ​“Mudhole,” back when it was the center of the late 1980s, early 1990s crack trade. And there was no mud Sunday — the patch of land was dusty and dry, with sparse tufts of grass throughout.

Blest saw U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal on the news a couple of months ago decrying the lack of school resources available to feed children on the weekends over the summer. A member of a black empowerment group called CT Red Black Green (CT R.B.G.), he approached the other chapter members to see if they wanted to help fill the gap.

Nearby ​“Lincoln-Bassett School does it Monday through Friday. Saturday and Sunday; we’ll pick up the slack,” he said.

They passed around flyers down Dixwell Avenue to Munson Street, as well as on Winchester Avenue and Bassett Street. After that early round of footwork, individual donations started to come in, Blest said. The movement is grassroots, so it’s sustainable, he said.

That outreach also grabbed people who needed the donations.

Payne, a 14-year-old student at Elm City College Prep Middle School, walked by the colorful tents and small crowd eight weeks ago. ​“They gave me a flyer,” he said.

Sunday, eight weeks later, he finally stopped in for breakfast, eagerly devouring a plate piled high with pancakes and red grapes. And Payne had company: He brought along four sisters and his friend Damon Roberts.

Police officers July 6 shot and killed Philando Castile after pulling him over in Minnesota, an incident that sparked nationwide protest. Three days later, RBG held the first pancake breakfast, which drew a couple of dozen boys and men from ages 13 to 22.

Blest ​“woke up feeling nervous, scared, angry,” and he saw those emotions in the faces of the black boys and men who came for breakfast.

Breakfast turned into a group therapy session, on what is was like to see their peers being killed. They asked Blest how he functioned having to attend so many funerals of his friends. ​“I started seeing tears out of them,” Blest said. ​“They got to rehabilitate each other.”

Organizers want to help kids build skills, to positively redirect their energy. At a separate tent, Diamond Tree taught two avid students the basics of hand sewing. ​“Some have made pocket books,” she said. ​“They don’t have home ec in their schools.”

Majestic Divine and Washan Bayathyaallah were focused on a game of chess in another tent. Sometimes kids stop by and want to learn. Majestic Divine said the game teaches them how to ​“strategize,” so they get better at making decisions in their daily lives. ​“A lot of kids grow up and don’t exercise their minds,” he said.

Diane Brown, manager of the Stetson Library on Dixwell Avenue, said she has been spreading the word to neighbors, telling them to bring what they can and take what they want each weekend.

She grew up in Newhallville in the 1960s and ​‘70s, and got involved in the Black Panther Party’s community organizing. ​“It brings back that kind of spirit,” she said. Just as the Black Panthers worked to provide free breakfasts and social services for the black community, these Newhallville leaders want to inspire the same kind of self-sufficiency in their neighborhood, she said. ​“Start looking inside the community” and pull together resources, she said.

“They’re not looking to make a profit out here,” Brown said.

Blest, Brother Born and other organizers are far from making a profit. They began the morning at 10 a.m. with a highly stacked table of books. An hour later, the pile was considerably shorter.

Newhallville neighbor Angela Barnes stopped by after church and grabbed some fruit, a lime green fleece, and about five children’s books from the table. She lives ​“down the street” and said she is grateful for the organizers’ work.

Still, Blest has had a hard time getting community leaders to give as much support as he would like. Some, like State Sen. Gary Winfield and Newhallville Alder Delphine Clyburn, have stopped by and lent their support.

He is hoping to draw in church leaders and police officers, who so far have not been very involved.

When it gets cold, the pancakes will move indoors, to a karate school at 184 Dixwell Ave. ​“We will be able to do kung fu Saturday morning with breakfast indoors,” Blest said. He also plans on offering workshops, staffed by volunteers, in financial education, job readiness and black history.

Blest said people in Newhallville are best equipped to understand each other — black kids in their neighborhood need food and stability, not necessarily medicine or heavy discipline.

Breakfast was supposed to end at 12 p.m., but kids kept coming, heading directly to the food tent, from the nearby basketball court. So organizers prepared to keep serving — until every pancake, or kid, was gone.

For information on donating or volunteering, call (203) 640‑4375.