Lisa Reisman photo
Fred Christmas at the door with Dixwell resident Sharon Green.
Fred Christmas bounded onto Winter Street in the biting January air, holding a manila envelope of campaign leaflets in his hand.
The Ward 21 alder hopeful had spent the morning talking with Dixwell voters, and was running late for a meetup with some neighborhood senior citizens. But there were still a few more doors to knock — and Christmas was on a mission.
That mission is to get elected as the next alder for Ward 21, which covers parts of Dixwell, Newhallville, and Prospect Hill.
Christmas, a 65-year-old Dixwell native and neighborhood organizer, is one of three Democrats running in the race to fill the open seat left earlier this year by Steve Winter after the latter took a new job as City Hall’s director of climate and sustainability.
The other candidates in the Ward 21 race are Maceo Troy Streater and Kendall Hurse. All three names will be on the ballot for a Ward 21 special election on Jan. 23. Christmas is the Democratic Party’s endorsed candidate, having prevailed with five ward committee votes over Streater’s four late last year.
Click here and here to read more about candidates in the Ward 21 special election.
Christmas engaged in door knocking.
“Let’s just do this side,” said Christmas as he hustled in the cold onto Winter Street from a stretch of row houses on Goffe Street.
Christmas spoke with pride about his years of dedication to making Dixwell a better place to live. “I have been working with the community for a long time,” he said.
He knocked on a door. The only answer was a yapping dog. Undeterred, he slid a flyer in the mail slot and moved on.
“I did the ‘Dixwell Strong’ celebration early on in the pandemic,” he said, referring to the June 2020 initiative that had local artists spreading the message about the importance of masking up through public banners on Dixwell Avenue, volunteers handing out 400 masks, and a pop-up testing site.
Flyer in door.
He knocked on the next door. Again there was no answer. Again he slid a flyer in the mail slot.
Fred Christmas flyer.
“And then I do the Cool Breeze in the Parks with Phil Bynum to bring international jazz artists to the parks, and Arts and Ideas, and I work with Women of the Village food pantry,” he said as he crossed a sparse lawn and made his way up another walk.
He checked his watch, knocked. “I think this is the last one for now,” he said.
Sharon Green opened the door.
“How you doing, Fred?” she asked, a smile on her face.
“We go way back, family friends, growing up in this neighborhood,” Christmas said, his breath showing in the air, as he handed her a flyer. “Your sister here? Tell her not to forget about the 23rd, okay? I need her vote. I need your vote. I really do.”
“A lot of these people know me from growing up over here,” he told this reporter, referring to the former Elm Haven housing projects. He made his way down the steps, and headed toward Saint Lukes Senior Housing. “See them houses over there? I used to live in that project right there.”
Christmas with Women of the Village's Andrea Mastracchio and Sharon Waddley Stevens, among others.
He sounded the same refrain at the meeting with Saint Lukes residents.
“I watched this whole plaza being built when I was a little kid, and that gave me pride,” he told a group of eight assembled in a common room. “I’m watching this plaza being built again and that gives me a kick. I watched the two Q houses being built, that gives me a kick.”
That’s among the reasons, he said, that he’s taken it upon himself to join community efforts to root out urban blight.
“I work with different merchants on Dixwell to make sure they keep their storefronts neat, keep the avenue clean,” he said. “Right now I’m on hotspots that make our neighborhood look real bad. I do that for nothing. I do it because I want to and this neighborhood deserves it.”
He highlighted his work as a board member with Women of the Village Food Pantry, the nonprofit that distributes food from the Charles Street police substation every Tuesday from 1 to 2 p.m. as among his “passions.”
With that, he recognized the “three women of the village,” as he put it — program director Sharon Waddley Stevens, Andrea Mastracchio, and Margaret Gainey, all of whom are board members.
“These are the women that through Covid, through snow storms, through blizzards, and dealing with me, that make sure the people in the Dixwell area get their food basket,” he said. “Every Tuesday like clockwork.”
He said they’ve been serving about 180 people. “The people that come in need us, having no food. You could have a job, but a part-time job, but you still need that added food, especially if you’re working parents, or you’re a single older person. You need that extra thing in your refrigerator.”
“We also give out gloves, hats, scarves, and Pampers for the kids, and we try to hook people up with referrals to go get their problems solved,” he said.
He then opened the floor for questions.
St. Lukes resident Toni Dunston.
Toni Dunston, a Saint Lukes resident seated in the back of the room, asked for Christmas’s take on the state’s new legal recreational marijuana law.
“If the marijuana works for our community as in getting taxes that come back into our community, I’m all for it, because we need to build up our neighborhood,” Christmas replied.
Cal Williams and Fred Christmas.
“What about crime?” asked Cal Williams, another resident.
“What I would do about crime is what I do now,” Christmas said. “I talk with the lieutenant a lot, the commander a lot. My thing is to have foot patrol. I don’t mean walking by and keep walking. I mean stopping and getting to know the people.”
“Like the old times,” Williams said.
The rest of the discussion ranged from security at Saint Lukes — Christmas pledged to be the residents’ voice to management — to talk about affordable housing up and down Dixwell, to his pledge to send out a monthly newsletter to keep his constituents apprised of what was going on in the ward.
Fred and Cal.
“Fred really cares about the community, really cares,” Williams said after the meeting. “He rolls up his sleeves and he’ll jump in, no matter what it is, and if he can’t help you out, he’ll lead you on to someone who can.”
“Even before this, if you need help, go to Fred.”
Margaret Gainey, who does not permit close-ups.
Women of the Village’s Gainey, who works as a crossing guard, nodded.
“I didn’t really know to go to him, but he was just someone that I was talking to at the moment when I lost my job and he was like, ‘You look a little down, do you need something,’” she recalled.
“And I told him what happened, and he said, ‘Well, let’s putter around and see what we can find,’ and we did, and in less than a month, I have my job which I really love.”
Great article! Good man...I will be voting this coming Monday! This is how one builds community; one knock on a door, one neighbor at a time, one need at a time, one step at a time, one street at a time, one gathering at a time, one sincere gesture at a time. Anytime, day or night.