Community Leaders Honored At Annual Freddy Fixer Gala

by Lisa Reisman

Newhallville’s Fred Christmas is the kind of neighbor known for rolling up his sleeves and jumping into any problem posed to him, and if he can’t, finding someone who can. He can’t abide people being hungry or cold, or babies going without diapers. And he recognizes the civic pride that can come from well-maintained neighborhoods, working with businesses on Dixwell to make sure their sidewalks and storefronts are clean.

So it seemed fitting that the community activist, local organizer and businessman was honored with a Community Service Award at the 8^th annual Freddy Fixer award gala last Friday night at Anthony’s Ocean View. The annual parade grew around a broom that community activist Edward Grant used to clean up Dixwell Avenue in 1962; the name Freddy Fixer is a riff on Dr. Fred Smith, Grant’s comrade in community-rousing.

“I’m from here, I know what we need, and I’m passionate about trying to get us where we need to be,” Christmas, a native New Havener who grew up in the Elm Haven projects, told the New Haven Independent in 2023. (With the exception of Man of the Year Ray V. Boyd, there were no speeches by award winners Friday.)

The practice of going above and beyond was, it seemed, the unofficial theme at the gala, which was emceed by Levon “Majesty” Whitaker, with DJ Too Much spinning tunes that kept the spirits high and the energy pulsing through the dressed-to-the-nines crowd of 400 throughout the evening.  

TJay Wylie with award winner Tracey Foskey.

As the founder of the Total Joy Are You (TJAY) Autism Foundation, Tracey Foskey accepted the Trailblazer Award. Foskey, a social worker, started the group in 2015 amid the behavioral challenges of her son TJay, who was diagnosed with autism at 3. As a throng of well-wishers snapped photos, TJay, who’s now 21 and an entrepreneur with a business, The Motivation Collection, appeared beside her, beaming.

“This award belongs to my son, TJay, my inspiration, my purpose, and the reason the Total Joy Are You (TJAY) Autism Foundation was born,” Foskey, who plans to attend law school, wrote on Instagram after the event. “Because of you, I found my voice. Because of you, I found purpose in advocacy and service. Because of you, I learned that challenges do not define us. Love, faith, and perseverance do.”

Samantha Myers-Galberth, long-time co-owner of Whalley Avenue’s Style 2000 Beauty Salon and Community Service Award winner, was honored for quietly providing complimentary hairstyling services to women’s shelters, detox centers, and local high school students getting ready for prom while affording a sanctuary for her clients.

“The ladies [of Style 2000] are pillars of the community,” a customer told the New Haven Independent in 2025.

In late 2022, Celeste Coleman, recipient of the gala’s Business Award, founded Connecticut Balloons, a luxury balloon design company that transforms “ordinary spaces into extraordinary experiences.” Its success, with gigs that range from a recent nurse-pinning ceremony at Gateway to weddings to landmark birthdays to prom send-offs, led her to create The Balloon Blueprint, an educational balloon experience designed to empower aspiring entrepreneurs “to turn their talent into income and their ideas into ownership.”

“You belong in every room you enter, even the ones you weren’t invited into,” she recently wrote on Facebook. “And if there’s space for you at that table, walk in confidently and make room for others too. Keep your head up. The work will always speak for itself.”

Shay Taylor-Allen.

Woman of Inspiration Award winner Shay Taylor-Allen, having watched doctors at Yale New Haven Hospital attributing her mother’s health issues to mental illness, grew determined to do something about it. As it happened, she was mopping floors at that same hospital full-time while taking steps toward medical school, which she followed through to an incoming anesthesiology residency at Yale.   

“I read all these studies about how doctors don’t hear Black women or see their pain,” she told the New Haven Independent last November. “I want to be in a position to help people like my mom.”

Honoree Lindy Lee Gold grew up in a Jewish family, absorbing from her father the principle of “tikkun olam,” which means repair the world.

Her philanthropy has included M.A.T.C.H., which creates pathways to careers in manufacturing for individuals with barriers to gainful employment; the Women in Business program at SCSU, which offers networking, etiquette lunches, and one-on-one coaching for female business students; and most recently a new delivery vehicle for Sanctuary Kitchen, which provides culinary training and professional development for immigrant and refugee chefs.

“Everything I’ve tried to do has been to promote self-esteem,” she told News at Southern in 2024. “I think self-esteem is the cornerstone for a successful career and a successful life.”

Jacob C. Padrón, artistic director of Long Wharf Theatre, celebrated his Arts and Culture Award by dancing the salsa with Freddy Fixer President Reese L. McLeod.

In 2023, Padrón took the momentous step of leaving Long Wharf’s physical building and recreating it as an “itinerant” theater, recognizing that storytelling in theater doesn’t just have the power to bring people together; it can happen anywhere.

That’s consistent with his programming, which reflects the full breadth of New Haven’s people and stories.

“We are committed to building a theater that belong to all people who call this city their home,” he told the Independent in May 2022.

Man of the Year Ray V. Boyd, who was released from the Connecticut Department of Correction after being incarcerated at 19, spent his three decades of incarceration remaking himself into a force for change, co-founding, among other initiatives, the T.R.U.E. Re-entry Program, which has older inmates serving life sentences acting as mentors to younger offenders, to break cycles of violence and learn practical life skills.

With his wife Jacqueline James, Boyd — the author of “The Model Inmate” and program manager at the Law and Racial Justice Center at the Yale Law School — has helped transform James’s childhood home into a transitional home for people re-entering society through their nonprofit, Next Level Empowerment Program, which is focused on providing resources for formerly incarcerated people and their families.

“Speech, speech,” partygoers called out to Boyd when his name was announced. “I’m not big on big public displays of myself, but this is our life’s work, and this means a lot,” he said to cheers and applause.