Hill Turkey Giveaway Served With “Unconditional Love”

by Allan Appel The New Haven independent

Volunteer Willie Jackson was feeding Auntie Brenda tasty vegetable soup with a spoon because she had no teeth and was finding it difficult to eat on her own.

Miguel Pittman was making sure that Jon Dina had take-out containers of soup, pasta, and mixed vegetables and could get back several blocks away to where he was staying, homeless and outside for the night, before the electricity ran out on his wheel chair.

And Nicole Kennedy remembered one night not long ago when her blankets had been stolen, and Sandra Pittman, who cruised by her on her regular rounds every night delivering hot food to the homeless, went back to her own house and returned with replacement blankets.

That was the scene at 209 Davenport Ave. between Orchard and Elliot streets in the Hill on Tuesday, as restaurateurs Miguel and Sandra Pittman orchestrated a pre-Thanksgiving turkey giveaway and hot meal for anyone who came by.

And dozens did, greeting the Pittmans, who are long-time proprietors of Sandra’s Next Generation, the soul food restaurant that for 35 years has been an anchor to the neighborhood along Congress Avenue in the Hill.

The Pittmans, their volunteer crew sitting around the hot trays of food, and the steady trickle of folks in wheelchairs, hauling big backpacks and duffels, some pulling trash cans on wheels, and other makeshift nighttime equipment of the homeless, greeted each other with hugs and gratitude and newsy catch-ups about the neighborhood, like the old friends they all were.

The Pittmans have been doing this pre-Thanksgiving event for about ten years, said Sandra Pittman, largely for the homeless. It served as a kind of appetizer for the full-scale cooked Thanksgiving Day meal Sandra’s has been providing to about 500 people out of the Congress Avenue restaurant for going now on three decades.

While the Pittmans may be involved in a hot-meal-for-your vote and registration controversy emerging from the recent Ward 3 alder race, which Pittman lost to incumbent Angel Hubbard, Tuesday night’s gathering was one of absolutely zero controversy and instead boundless admiration and gratitude for the Pittmans’ contribution to the community.

Shandrea Pittman and parents Sandra and Miguel.

For, as one of the recipients put it, as food is love, then the Pittmans’ love for their neighbors, especially the homeless, who alas abound on many corners and other spots along Davenport between Vernon Street and Ella T. Grasso Boulevard, is generous and, to use Kennedy’s descriptor, “unconditional.”

The giveaway unfolded at 209 Davenport, a paved-over site of a former car repair garage, which Miguel Pittman purchased and is slowly developing, he said, for an affordable housing complex. They are at the stage, he said, of getting on the agenda of the Board of Zoning Appeals.

In that lot, illuminated by makeshift lights, and with a backdrop of the restaurant’s two large catering vans that held a supply of frozen turkeys, Shandrea Pittman, the couple’s daughter, checked in people from Ward 3, about 20 of whom had pre-registered, she said, for the event which was advertised to that ward’s residents online.

“We ask if they live in the area, but even if they don’t we give the food out,” she said.

Another 50 people were expected and Sandra estimated that all told on this night about 100 will have been fed, a large majority of them, it appeared, homeless and getting through the night in make-shift peripatetic gatherings all along Davenport Avenue.

As she was leaving with a frozen turkey under her arm, one young woman and her mom, from nearby Elliot Street, said she had come by because of the higher prices of absolutely everything in her life.

When Jon Dina rolled in on his wheelchair, the Pittmans greeted him like an old friend. Dina said he’d been homeless for about three years after having his legs badly injured when he was hit by a car. Out on the street, and sheltering tonight, he said, on Davenport near Yale’s medical complex, Dina said in a sense he owed his life to this family.

“The Pittmans are a blessing to the community,” he said.

While the groups of homeless move from place to place, “they find us,” said Dina, referring to the nightly runs that Sandra Pittman and her volunteers make after the close of business every day.

Lisa Velazquez, who has been volunteering at the restaurant for 29 years, often accompanies Sandra on the food runs to deliver all the food that has not been sold that day.

The run begins in the immediate area, she said, but then can extend to the New Haven Green as well, wherever people are gathered.

“Every night we go and feed 15 or 20 people,” she said.

“We know the spots,” Sandra added.

Other volunteers at work this night on Davenport and on the regular food-give-aways that are part of the identity of Sandra’s Next Generation, include child and family friends of the Pittmans and folks whose day jobs are in city government as well.

Nicole Kennedy said that she and other people living on the street also receive helpful visits from social workers from COMPASS (Compassionate Allies Serving Our Streets), the city’s non-armed crisis intervention team, but Sandra’s visits are in a different order of compassion.

The food, for example, right from the restaurant, is hot, and that makes a difference on these frigid nights. And so does the regularity of visits from the Pittmans and their circle around the restaurant.

But there’s more going on here.

Kennedy, still very much struggling with addiction, was at pains to point out that Sandra also allows, even encourages her to help, when she can, in the restaurant during business hours. A relationship, in short, develops, one of not only being a recipient but a contributor, a helper as well.

Willie Jackson, Lady V, and Auntie Brenda

Also, through the network that has developed around the Pittmans, Kennedy said she will soon be off the streets. At least for a while. She’ll be moving into the apartment, she said, of a woman in the neighborhood who lives alone and could benefit from a companion.

“COMPASS is wonderful,” said Kennedy, “but it’s not the individual attention and love we get from Sandra. She’s an unconditional loving woman. She allows me to love back,” Kennedy concluded.

The giveaway, with a steady stream of people coming in to chat, eat, and renew acquaintances, went on from 4 to 6 p.m. But the Pittmans weren’t done. They had several stops to make, deliveries, to people who were unable to leave their homes, Sandra said.

“We feed people,” said Miguel Pittman. “This is what we do.”

Another recipient, who identified herself as Lady V, was absolutely insistent on telling this reporter, as he was leaving, her Sandra tale: When she arrived in New Haven from Georgia, with a son and two grandsons, Lady V said she knew no one and was looking for a way to connect.

On her phone she looked for a place to find soul food. And that was the beginning of a relationship, Lady V said, that has also included the Pittmans being an advocate not only for her, but also for her children over these last 13 years.

“She’s my sister. They provide soul food and food for the soul, the spirit,” she said.