Rock Fires Up The Grill

Rodney ​“Rock” Williams took a break from his construction and landscaping work Tuesday afternoon — to serve up free hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken tenders, and French fries on the Farmington Canal Trail, as part of a back-to-school food giveaway in Newhallville.

“It don’t take a lot of money to feed a lot people,” Williams said at around 4 p.m. Tuesday, while standing alongside Police Chief Karl Jacobson and cookout-colleague Al Morris.

Williams, who runs Green Elm Construction and other contractor businesses, said that he and Morris and neighborhood top cop Sgt. Jarrell Lowery, among others, set up in the Learning Corridor — where the canal trail meets Hazel Street — at around 1 p.m.

The goal: to serve as many kids and neighbors as possible to help the community round out summer and get ready for the start of the school year.

They went through ​“four big bags of chicken tenders, five bags of French fries, 80 hot dogs,” and plenty of hamburgers, Williams said. 

Morris and Williams estimated they served around 100 people in total during their three hours at the grill. Williams said that Tuesday’s food giveaway — as hosted by ​“Rocks Community Food Cart” — cost around $400 in total to put together.

Twenty-seven of Tuesday’s happy eaters were students from the Harris & Tucker preschool and the Inspired Communities program, two Newhallville institutions run by Kim Harris.

“The kids were so happy,” Harris recalled in a Tuesday evening phone interview. ​“I think when community people come out and do things like this from the heart, it makes a huge difference.”

She said that many of the kids in her programs know Williams — or ​“Mr. Rock” — as a construction contractor. On Tuesday, they got to know him as someone cooking for and feeding the community.

“We have so much food insecurity in our neighborhood,” she added. Tuesday’s event was one small way to address that need, while building community along the way.