Top: Alder Honda Smith proudly presenting a fully packaged carton of eggs. Bottom: Nevaeh James with Julian and Jose Solivan, standing together and talking about the garden. Zahara Gazzola Photos.
On a rainy, late summer morning, the loud cackling of chickens broke the gloom at The Shack on 333 Valley St. A colorful basket of eggs, already overflowing from previous days, sat in the kitchen. Teens worked on moving boxes and repainting the main room a peaceful gray, and Alder Honda Smith sat proudly watching everyone working, occasionally pointing out places that needed a second coat.
A little over a year ago, Smith had been thinking seriously about something she could do for neighborhood kids that needed something a little more hands-on to cope with anxiety. She came up with chickens. Animals are known for helping with mental health, and along with the chickens, The Shack boasts an on-site therapist, too.
“We thought, in this setting, [the chickens] would be fitting. Because we have a farm … and they give us eggs, and fertilizer for our farm,” Smith said.
Smith said the chickens are a huge hit with the youth. She and the team at The Shack ultimately chose to keep nine, thinking that would be a good balance between egg production and a manageable number of chickens to care for. Since the chicks came 14 months ago, plenty of young people from the neighborhood have helped raise them, and anywhere from one to 20 kids come to help Smith in the afternoon with them.
To name the chickens, Smith ran an auction for naming rights, using the money to pay for chicken supplies. The results—one of which fetched $1,500—included the names Shirley, Agnes, Helen, and Engine 15 (chosen by members of the New Haven Fire Department).
She says the chickens are just as much of a hit with the adults, too. “I’ll go back there and sit with the chickens, and sing and read to them,” Smith said.
She laughed as she remembered when the chickens sing along with her and how they sometimes dance for her.
Smith also gets a lot of help from the community. In particular, two brothers, Julian and Jose Solivan, 18 and 19 respectively, do a lot of the construction work for the coop. Julian is a student at the New Haven Adult & Continuing Education Center, and Jose is a 2025 graduate of Eli Whitney High School.
The two had moved from Middletown to New Haven, and they were both introduced to the Shack when their younger siblings started going there, and convinced them to come. That was roughly three years ago. They never stopped coming.
“[It’s] nice that Miss Honda took us in,” said Julian. In late July, he and Jose remembered, a giant groundhog was stuck in the chicken coop. To get the groundhog out, they enlisted the help of s West Hills-based police officer.
“We enclosed it inside the coop, then sort of guided it out, and then it just ran away across the field,” Jose said. Then the team went around the perimeter of the coop, installing a double protection of hardware wire and cement to prevent predators.
Nevaeh James, 17, joined Jose and Julian in letting the chickens out for the morning and walking around the garden. She has been at the Shack for four to five years, starting when her brother brought her in, and Smith helped out her family, especially her mother. James just began her senior year at Hill Regional Career High School.
“Honestly, Miss Honda is the savior of the world,” James said. “And I got to know her heart.”
The Shack has two gardens, one next to the building and the other next to the now-closed West Rock Stream Academy. Alongside the chicken coop, the main garden contains a variety of fruits and vegetables, including two beds of tomatoes, overflowing strawberry beds, peppers, and squash. The young people who tend it also have logs for growing mushrooms, garlic, and sunflowers.
In the second garden, there are close to 30 pots of herbs, more tomatoes, watermelon, and raspberries and blueberries. All three teens agreed that because of tending to the garden, they are a lot more conscious of what they are eating and what they are putting into their food.
“At first, I would have thought that farming wasn’t really my thing, but it’s not that bad,” James said.
Julian holding the paint and keeping an eye on his brother, Jose.
Meanwhile, the community room and dining hall of the Shack was undergoing a significant makeover. Jose, Julian, and James weren’t just savvy in lawn work, but also home decor, taking off their garden gloves to dawn blue latex gloves and paint brushes.
Within minutes, Jose had climbed up the ladder with a paint roller, Julian in tow with the paint bucket. James and the Solivan brothers helped with some of the higher wall spaces, figuring the best ways to stand on the ladder without falling, and encouraging each other to go higher.
Smith looked on with a smile on her face. “You better not fall!” she exclaimed. “You still have more work to do after this!”
Alongside them, veteran painters Bianca Gomez, Siulmarie Santana, and Johana Perez all led the makeover charge. With small, delicate strokes, Gomez filled in the walls of a black and white mural of the late Ronald W. Augustine Sr., alderman and former director of the West Rock Neighborhood Corporation.
Gomez got involved with the Shack in 2022, during her sophomore year at James Hillhouse High School, led there by her former art teacher, Rebecca LeQuire. In the game room, corridors, and other places in the Shack, murals from LeQuire and her student artists tell a story of New Haven history, from New Haven arts icons and notable civic figures to an homage to the neighborhood.
“I really love hanging out with Honda. She always has something for us to do, so it’s nice because we are not just stuck at home,” Gomez said.
Gomez, without ever using the terminology, described how Alder Honda Smith has created a third space.
Now 18, Gomez is entering her second year at the University of Connecticut, majoring in industrial design. She said she originally majored in marketing business, but realized she wanted to have art in her life.
To the right of Gomez was Santana, adding green to the white space around Augustine Sr.’s name while Perez crouched down to paint the space behind the arcade game. Perez is a sophomore at University of New Haven, majoring in business management. Santana, 18, is going into her first year at Gateway Community College, majoring in health science. Like Gomez, Perez and Santana have been working at the Shack for four years.
“I really love working here. There is always such a community vibe,” Santana said.
Another component that goes into the chicken care is not just their environment and enclosure but feed. Smith refuses to use medicated feed, and instead uses chili powder in the chicken feed to keep parasites out, and she claims satisfactory results in the fact that the chickens have not had parasites. Smith also gives them egg booster from the brand Roosties.
She said it increases egg production, egg durability, and healthy proteins in the eggs. The chickens also get electrolytes in their water from the same brand, and are constantly being tossed fresh herbs like parsley and oregano.
“We call them the boujee chickens,” Smith joked.
All these measures and eggstra steps must account for something, though. In just a weeks-long period, the chickens laid 87 eggs, and 84 of them were packaged to be sold to members of the community. The eggs come in a variety of colors, ranging from khaki olive and light, speckled brown, to warm tan.
After a week of egg collecting, Smith gently hand washes all the eggs in the kitchen sink to get rid of any dirt and chicken poop and dirt that may have stuck. After drying them, the eggs are coated in a food-grade mineral oil to prevent bacteria from getting in the eggs.
Once they are ready, Smith carefully sorts them into cartons by color and size. Once closed, she puts the Shack Farm sticker on them, and they are ready to go. The work inside and out of the Shack is made up of many volunteers, a true ode to its branding as an “intergeneral organization” on its website.
“Everything that is done in here is done by the youth,” Smith said.
This article comes from the ninth cohort of the Arts Council's Youth Arts Journalism Initiative (YAJI). Zahara (Zazie) Gazzola is a sophomore at Wilbur Cross High School and the ACES Educational Center for the Arts. Read more articles by our wonderful youth arts journalists here!