Thomas Breen photo
Wahlburgers chef Paul Wahlberg (right) and Crescent Capital’s Mark Devincentis at Thursday’s burger giveaway.
A Massachusetts-based burger restaurant, a Los Angeles-based investment firm, and the state treasurer’s office teamed up with local clergy, politicians, firefighters, and labor organizers to distribute 750 free hamburgers with a side order of Covid-19 racial consciousness in Dixwell, the Hill, and Fair Haven.
That day-long food giveaway endeavor kicked off Thursday morning in the parking lot of Varick Memorial AME Zion Church at 242 Dixwell Ave.
Wahlburgers head chef Paul Wahlberg and a half-dozen of his employees parked a school bus-sized van-turned-mobile kitchen in the historic African American church’s parking lot where they prepared and bagged 750 cheese burgers, bags of potato chips, and bottles of water.
Wahlberg (pictured) said the food giveaway was a part of a national effort his restaurant has spearheaded with funding from the investment firm Crescent Capital to bring free warm meals to first responders, police officers and firefighters, and at-risk families in neighborhoods that have been hard hit by massive unemployment and limited access to food during the pandemic.
“Everybody’s in this together,” Wahlberg said about why his restaurant has pushed to get the food out during the Covid-19 crisis. “There’s not one person in this country who hasn’t been affected by this.”
But some, he continued, have clearly been hit harder than others — including families already on the razor’s edge of poverty who have been pushed into food insecurity by a lost job or by getting sick.
“I know what it means to be hungry,” said the Dorchester native (and brother of actors Mark and Donnie Wahlberg). “I know what it means to be looking for food.”
Wahlberg’s Massachusetts-based company has a restaurant in Trumbull. He said he landed in New Haven Thursday because the event’s fiscal sponsor, Crescent Capital, works closely with the state treasurer’s office. Treasurer Shawn Wooden recommended that Wahlburgers’ bring its national #WhateverYouNeed campaign to the Elm City and helped coordinated the event.
“We’re not completely out of the woods as of yet, and as we continue to get through this public health crisis, it’s important to reach out and support our most vulnerable populations,” Wooden (pictured) said in a press release sent out after the event. “Today, I know for certain we will touch the lives of families who are struggling with unemployment, seniors who are on their own, and individuals who are stranded in the middle of food deserts. Every little bit counts towards making a difference, and I’m grateful for partners like Crescent Capital, Wahlburgers, Mayor Elicker, New Haven Rising, Unite here, and Local 825 New Haven Firefighters for making today possible.”
Roughly two dozen people turned out to the Dixwell Avenue church to pick up a free meal before the mobile burger joint moved on to its next step at Roberto Clemente Academy in the Hill, to be followed by a third stop for the day at Bregamos Community Theater in Fair Haven.
Vicki Green (pictured) said she’s a regular at Varick’s Wednesday food pantry, which is where she heard about Thursday morning’s event. “I love what is going on with the community,” she said. “I am so happy that finally we are all coming together as one community.”
“Any act of generosity during this time is a great help,” said Michael Twitty (pictured), a New Haven Public Schools adult education staffer who lives on Park Street.
He said he routinely hears from students he works with about their struggles to afford food, health care, and other basic needs during this crisis. He said food give-aways like Thursday’s help tide hungry families over until the next paycheck.
Dixwell resident Kenneth Jones (pictured) agreed. “I just appreciate this,” he said about the event. He said Thursday’s burger give-away is just the latest Varick-hosted event looking out for the surrounding community. “This church is very active in the community,” he said. “They do a lot.”
“A Moment Of The Great Reveal”
Varick AME Church Pastor Kelcy Steele.
Thursday’s event was more than just a free burger food pantry. It doubled as an impromptu political rally around the disproportionate impacts that Covid-19 has had on working class black and brown communities throughout the country, including in New Haven.
Varick Pastor Kelcy Steele kicked off the press conference that preceded the food distribution by drawing a clear through line from redlining to the racial impact of Covid-19 to the death of a black man pinned to the ground with a white police officer’s knee pressed against his neck.
“Racism” and “classism,” which have dominated American life for too long, he said, have reared their ugly heads yet again.
“I am sick and tired of injustice and unjust systems,” he said. “I can’t stand here and not bring up the name of George Floyd. I would be a social justice champion accused of social malpractice.”
Floyd was a 46-year-old African American man who was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis on Monday when that officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for five minutes as the latter lay pinned to the asphalt, pleading with the officer to let him go because he couldn’t breathe. A bystander took a video recording of Floyd’s death. Four city police officers in Minneapolis have subsequently been fired. And the city has been rocked by protests over the last two days as hundreds have taken to the streets to decry yet another unarmed black man killed by a white police officer.
“Before he died, after being pinned for minutes beneath a police officer’s knee, George Floyd was suffering the same fate as millions of Americans during this coronavirus pandemic,” Steele said. “He was out of work and he was looking for a new job.”
Floyd had worked as a bouncer at a restaurant, and had lost the job after the restaurant closed because of the governor’s pandemic-induced shutdown order.
“This black unemployed man didn’t deserve to die,” Steele said. “The way he died was senseless. He begged for his life. He pleaded for his life.”
Steele said that Floyd’s death, the economic crisis that led to his unemployment, as well as the disproportionate hurt felt by black and brown Americans throughout the country during this pandemic have only accelerated the need for the wealthiest institutions in town, Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital, to step up their local hiring goals and to contribute more financially to a strapped city budget. He said Varick has signed on to a petition circulated by a coalition of local activist organizations, including New Haven Rising, calling for just such an increased financial contribution from Yale and YNHH.
“It’s sad that we have to beg Yale to respect New Haven,” he said. “With all that’s going on in the world, show a little bit more compassion in your own backyard.
“Today we are not just giving out hamburgers,” he continued. “We are giving out hope. Because George Floyd could have been me. Because George Floyd could have been you.”
New Haven Rising lead organizer Scott Marks (pictured) agreed.
He said watching a white police officer’s knee pressed against Floyd’s neck against the background of this entire pandemic represented for him “a moment of the great reveal. These are the conditions of black and brown folks, that same folks that are in that map that have been overlooked, that have been stepped on, that have been walked on.
“Enough is enough,” he shouted. “Enough is enough. Enough is enough. This time is now for everyone to step up.”