Culture & Community | Incarceration | Music | Painting | Arts & Culture | Arts & Anti-racism
Jazzy's Owner and UPN Founder Jason V. Watts, Winning Ways' Elizabeth Protzman, and Winning Ways co-founder and Executive Director Kevin Paulin. Lucy Gellman Photos.
The twang and bounce of “Sorry” vibrated through the room, pulling people from their seats as sun streamed through the windows. Toward the back of the space, Camille Roach began handing out small trays of blue, white, red and yellow paint, the colors dancing with the thrumming bass. Leaning over his laptop at the front, DJ Handsome Jay moved to the beat. The floor vibrated. Queen Bey had arrived in New Haven.
Laughter, conversation, and hours of danceable music defined New Haven’s first Beyoncé Brunch Sunday afternoon, held at Jazzy’s Cabaret as a fundraiser for Winning Ways, Inc. Founded in 2016, the organization works to stem recidivism by setting up formerly incarcerated individuals with jobs, training experience, and support as they go through the reentry process.
In part, that work grows out of the statistic that two-thirds of formerly incarcerated people return to prison within three years of their release, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The brunch also received support from the Urban Professionals Network (UPN), which is helmed by Jazzy’s owner Jason V. Watts.
Lucy Gellman Photos.
“We try to be a support system for those that do not have a support system,” said Winning Ways co-founder and Executive Director Kevin Paulin in an interview outside the Orange Street cabaret and restaurant. “When you’re in prison, it’s a mentality. It’s an environment where they want to make you feel like a loser. That’s where our name comes from. We want people to win.”
For Paulin, the mission is personal. Born and raised in New Jersey, he first moved to Connecticut in the early 2000s, to study business management at Central Connecticut State University. While still a student in 2010, he was arrested and sent to prison back in his home state. During the four years that he was incarcerated, he lost one of his brothers to gun violence, a painful memory he later brought to a meeting of Connecticut’s Judiciary Committee.
He has since become a fierce advocate for carceral reform, particularly in speaking out against the cruelty of solitary confinement. While incarcerated, he also dedicated himself to creating a path forward—for both himself and others with his lived experience.
“And though it was in the state of New Jersey, these practices of breaking us, the spirit of a fellow man or woman is common practice,” he said to state legislators during a Judiciary Committee meeting last year.
Lucy Gellman Photos.
Part of that, he said, is that he has seen how thin the line can be between getting on one’s feet, and not having solid ground to stand on. While in prison, Paulin had support from his family. He read voraciously, discovering the tenets of Buddhism as he began to integrate the practice into his life. He found that regular exercise cleared his mind. He began to focus on the future.
He didn’t have to do it alone, he said. When he was released from prison in 2014, his brother welcomed him into his home in West Haven, giving him a place to sleep. With his housing secure, Paulin was able to hold down a job at Columbus House, and then get a second job working at ShopRite. He started taking classes at Gateway Community College. Last year, he graduated with a degree in business management from Charter Oak State College.
Sunday, he said that his brother’s generosity gave him that springboard that he needed.
“He just believed in me, and I just stuck with it,” he said. Two years after his release, he founded Winning Ways with fellow Connecticut residents Benjamin Backes and Andrew Redenti as a way to pass that on. As it turns six years old this year, the organization has grown collaborations with Project M.O.R.E. New Haven, Emerge, and the city’s Department of Community Resilience.
Birthday girl Kiera Grissett (in the cream-colored top). Lucy Gellman Photos.
Inside the restaurant and bar, Beyoncé’s vocals filled every corner of the building, slipping behind doorways, snaking across the carpeting, winding up the walls and up to the ceiling. As DJ Handsome Jay (a.k.a. Jeroy Smith, who is a therapist when he’s not getting the whole room on its feet) wound the clock back to “Jumpin Jumpin,” Kiera Grissett raised her arms above her head and began to dance. Beside her, a table of almost a dozen friends moved to the music.
Based in New Britain, Grissett said she was excited when she saw the event pop up: she loves Beyoncé so much that it’s earned her the nickname Kieoncé among friends. The timing was perfect: she turned 27 last week, and a dozen of her friends came out to celebrate with her. “I like the energy,” she said. Straining to speak over the music, she added that it is her second time at Jazzy’s—and that she plans to return again.
The track switched to “End Of Time,” and attendees stood up to dance and started moving from their seats. Close to where DJ Handsome Jay bobbed over a sound system, clumps of friends swayed in unison, some packing in close to the stage. Others broke off from the action, fanning themselves as they walked around the room. At tables by the bar, Hartford-based duo Daemond and Bahiti Benjamin showed off their merch from Walk Worthy Brands and Balebe Beads. 
Daemond and Bahiti Benjamin. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Inspired by Ephesians 4, Daemond Benjamin started the brand in 2014, as a way to empower fellow artists, creatives and entrepreneurs to push themselves. Sunday, he’d come out to the event after Bahiti spotted it online, and asked about vending. Learning about Winning Ways’ mission helped him feel inspired to grow his professional footprint, he said.
As an immigrant from Guyana, Benjamin has watched several cousins and uncles face deportation for minor offenses, including marijuana possession before it was legal in the state. Last week, his mind went immediately to them when President Joe Biden pardoned thousands of individuals who had records related to marijuana possession. As a Black man, he said, he knows that the criminal justice system is stacked against him before he even leaves home in the morning. He’s grateful for the work that Paulin and his colleagues do.
“It definitely gives me more purpose,” he said, adding that he’d like to see an expanded pardon process and a better way to revisit disproportionately long sentences. “We have a collective responsibility to take care of each other. If someone was incarcerated and has done their time, they have every right to come back.”
Cliff Rashaben.
At the bar, Cliff Rashaben took in the scene. For years, he worked for the State of Connecticut in corrections and juvenile detention, during which time he began to think about how broken the justice system could be—particularly for Black men and non-Black people of color. After decades in the field, he believes that there should be more financial, institutional and professional support for people getting out of prison, and that their records should be revisited and expunged after five years of “good behavior” following reentry.
Right now, he said, the consequences of a single action and prison sentence can stay with people for their entire lives. So when he heard an announcement for Winning Ways’ event on the radio, he decided to check it out. “I think it’s important to support all organizations that need resources,” he said. “We’ve got to work together.”
Those words echoed through Camille Roach, a doctoral student and educator who is now Winning Ways’ assistant executive director. Growing up in New Haven, Roach saw the churn of the prison industrial complex firsthand: multiple cousins and brothers faced time in prison. For years, she worked with one brother to secure a pardon. When it was granted, she saw firsthand that “for them coming home was a lot of hiccups and not a lot of support.”
Part of that is through visual art, she said. Sunday, she was not only telling attendees about the nonprofit’s mission, but also leading a painting portion of the brunch. While for years “I didn’t think I could paint,” Roach became serious about artmaking and mental health when she was a college student. She’s let it run parallel to her work ever since.
“I strongly believe that art can be utilized to help with mental health,” she said. “I believe that everyone should have a second chance. To be able to express yourself—that allows people to cope.”
Watts, a native of New Haven who has been running the UPN for 12 years, said that he was thrilled to support Winning Ways. When he moved back to New Haven in 2014 after stints in Boston and Atlanta, he noticed that people assumed that New Haven was just a college town, or a provincial Connecticut city. It felt disrespectful.
“New Haven is so cool, and it doesn’t get the props that it deserves,” he said. “I really feel excited that people are supporting our vision and supporting what we’re here for.”