Paul Bass Photo
Bridgette Cunningham started her 24th year working at Yale Monday by rising as usual with her cellphone alarm at 2:20 a.m.
“Lord, thank you for giving me the health and strength to see another day,” she prayed before her feet hit the floor of her Whalley Avenue apartment.
She fed and played with Prince Bentley, her Standard Poodle.
Then she was out the door, en route to her facilities management position at the Yale School of Art sculpture studio, a building hidden behind Mamoun’s on the Edgewood-Howe-Chapel-Park block. She had marked the completion of her 23rd year as a union worker at the university on Sunday.
On the way to work Monday she made her daily Dunkin stop to pick up her $2.69 small hazelnut light-and-sweet coffee. She has made the same daily stop for decades.
“Just imagine all the money I could have now not spending that Dunkin Donuts $2.69 a day!” Cunningham said on her mid-morning break during a conversation on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program.
She arrived on time for her 4 a.m. shift. with a serving of oatmeal and raisins from home for breakfast. She was the first one in the building. She set out on her rounds making sure the bathrooms were stocked, the hallways neat, the trash receptacles emptied.
Then came her favorite part: when the students show up.
“I get to know all the students. Every year we get new students; students leave. I’m here to greet and meet the students and let them know who I am and what my role is in the building when it comes to them,” Cunningham said.
“Everything about Yale is very exciting to me.”
Cunningham grew up on Franklin Street in the old Farnam Courts complex. She recalled returning there with childhood friends when the housing authority began tearing it down to rebuild the complex as Mill River Crossing: “We went over there to collect bricks. I got one. I used it as a doorstopper at home. It brings back memories from where I was born and raised at.” When guests come over, she tells them, “Don’t touch that brick!”
After the 12:30 p.m. end of her shift, Cunningham planned to return home. She planned to walk the dog, cook some spaghetti. Depending on what movies are streaming, she expected to turn out the lights by 8 or 8:30.
Tuesday will be a different story: It’s one of her three days a week commuting to a second job, at Yale New Haven’s Bridgeport hospital. She puts in 24 hours a week there as a discharger.
That adds up to 64 hours a week of work. Occasionally that means only a couple of hours of sleep before returning back to the Downtown job.
How does she do it? “By the grace of God,” she said.
Cunningham hopes to retire when she completes her 25th year at Yale. She has other plans in the works, including launching a podcast with her brother Ryan Baldwin in the basement of his barbershop in West Haven’s Allingtown section. They hope to feature operators of emerging Black-owned businesses.
As her break came to a close, Cunningham headed back inside to work, dreams and gratitude in tow.
Click on the video to watch the full conversation with Bridgeitte Cunningham on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program. Click here to subscribe to WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” and here to subscribe to other WNHH programs.
Click here for previous “Word on the Street” episodes and write-ups.
Many more in good health!