Lisa Reisman Photo
fREsh-taurant crew at Pitts Chapel; Marcus Harvin, in yellow shirt, left center.
(Updated) You can speak all you want into somebody’s ear. If their stomach is growling, they can’t hear it.
Those were the words of Marcus Harvin, the visionary founder of Newhallville fREshSTARTs, at Pitts Chapel Unified Free Will Baptist Church on Friday night. The occasion was the grand opening of the fREsh-taurant, a food recovery initiative that will provide free hot, nutritious meals for the community, either eat-in or take-out, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening. Everyone is welcome.
Marcus Harvin.
The assortment of upper-case and lower-case letters is “to highlight the word RE-START, which symbolizes our mission to assist in undoing the ills of the days of old and is simultaneously symbolic of my new beginning,” said Harvin.
The opening marked the culmination of a plan he conceived, developed, and honed during his six years in prison to improve the lives of those around him.
(Update: The city health department temporarily shut down the operation Monday afternoon until Harvin obtains a food license. Monday night he and his group pivoted, bringing the food to the streets and dropping off meals at a warming center at Varick AME Zion Church.)
Harvin’s mother Stephanie Harvin, among a group of 50 high-spirited volunteers, church members, friends, and family, summed up the reason for a slim turnout Friday night.
“It’s the beginning of the month, which is when people get their food stamps,” she said, amid the cozy aroma of roasted chicken and the strains of cool jazz sounding in the mellow lit basement. “Wait a week or so and they’ll be coming.”
Seated at a nearby table with white cloths adorned with fresh flowers and tealights, Pitts Chapel member Rachel Richardson agreed. “This is needed,” she said. “We have food pantries but some people don’t have anywhere to cook the food, so their needs are not being met.
“So they get a hot meal in their stomach, and we might engage them in conversation and find out they need medical care or psychological care, and we have utility people here to help with bills,” she said, gesturing at a table in the corner with Avangrid representatives sharing brochures on lowering energy costs.
That’s consistent with Harvin’s philosophy.
“This is for anybody with an appetite that does not have enough money at the moment to fill their stomach, or anybody that has been deprived of interaction, they can come here and get food, and they can get emotional, social sustenance,” he said. “It’s about making the whole person whole.”
University of New Haven executive chef Peter Marrello said he brought 50 pounds of food with him from UNH dining halls. Also donating food were Yale, with pickup by Haven’s Harvest, and the SCSU Office of Sustainability. Regarding the dining halls, “it’s overproduction,” said Marrello, stationed in the kitchen amid aluminum trays of rice, beans, and chicken. “It happens when you’re feeding thousands of people.”
At a corner table, Newhallville Alder Kim Edwards strategized with Harvin, Neighborhood Housing Services’ Adam Rawlings, and Derek Faulkner, program coordinator of the SCSU Office of Sustainability Resilience Academy, about how to get the word out. “We need to flyer all these neighborhoods and we also need to get the information to the right people,” she told them.
Rapper Dontae “Bugatti” Harvin, Marcus’ younger brother, joined them, pledging the support of Gorilla Lemonade which, as part of the Eat Up Foundation, seeks to promote community over competition. “We are about taking care of the next generation, the kids that don’t have a chance, as young Black men, to do certain things because they don’t have role models,” he said. “We want to be the new role models, the new leaders of the community.”
“Marcus grew up in this church, he was raised to do this, especially by his grandmother Sally Harvin,” said Pitts Chapel church clerk Gaynell Martin, as she welcomed a neighbor, directing him to the kitchen for a take-out meal. “This is a beautiful idea. This is everything.”
For more information, call (203) 640‑2353 or email [email protected].
Thank you to Marcus Harvin, fREshSTARTs, Pitts Chapel Unified Free Will Baptist Church for opening of the fREsh-taurant, and all the volunteers and donors who are making it possible for the hungry to eat.
Thank you to UNH, SCSU and Yale connected people and Havens Harvest for making sure leftover food from the universities cafeterias are not going to waste and are filling empty stomachs.
I hope the food license is acquired soon, and this mission can continue and expand.