Top: Riyanna Singleton and Genesis Brown. Bottom: Ava Green. While this is technically her second Halloween, it's her first with tiny walking feet. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Just outside of the Dixwell Avenue Q House, Halloween was in full force—and a week early. On one side of Daniel Y. Stewart Plaza, college students Riyanna Singleton and Genesis Brown mingled with pint-sized princesses in clouds of pink ribbon and purple tulle. Closer to the building’s double doors, seventh grader Naomi Johnson emerged as Freddy Kreuger, disarmingly baby-faced and all smiles. At the center of the action, one-year-old Ava Green transformed into a baby scarecrow, reaching for a hand drum with tiny, outstretched fingers.
That scene came to Dixwell last Friday, as neighbors, nonprofits, arts groups, dancing dinosaurs, and members of the National Pan-Hellenic Council all descended on the Q House for LEAP’s (Leadership, Education, Athletics in Partnership) now-annual Halloween celebration. An autumnal tradition that has lasted for over a decade, the fête includes free entertainment, a movie screening, social service fair, and safe trick-or-treating, during which nearby city residents open their doors to hundreds of kids.
It has taken place at the Q House, which LEAP runs through a contract with the City of New Haven, since the building reopened in 2021. Prior to that time, it took place at LEAP’s Jefferson Street offices in the city’s Wooster Square neighborhood.
“It’s really about building a community that is supportive of all of our children,” said LEAP Executive Director Henry Fernandez. “Our slogan is ‘Creating a New Haven for our children,’ so we think about that in all that we do. It’s also about kids really knowing and feeling good about their own neighborhoods.”
It comes as LEAP, like many nonprofit organizations in the city, brave a new wave of federal funding cuts that make its mission harder to execute. Since President Donald Trump took office in January of this year, LEAP has lost roughly $1.5 million in funding, a combination of city, state and federal dollars that all originate in Washington. That gap represents about one seventh, or 20 percent, of the organization’s current operating budget.
With those cuts, LEAP has been forced to temporarily pause its Leaders In Training (LIT) initiative, a sort of apprenticeship program for 13 to 15 year olds through which they learn how to be leaders in the program. LEAP has also closed one after-school site at King Robinson School in Newhallville, where it was serving about 100 kids. While Fernandez said that the LIT program will start back up again in the spring, the site at King Robinson will remain closed.
“So it’s impacted us in a couple ways,” Fernandez said, still making time to check in with counselors, exchange handshakes with community members, and cheer on Proyecto Cimarrón as sisters Natasha and Naomy Velez came down from the stage, and began to teach Bomba steps to almost 20 kids. Among them, there was an Elsa in a shiny, snowflake-studded skirt, a counselor in a blush-colored flower crown, and at least one pair of fuzzy pink and white bunny ears.
Fernandez said that LEAP still serves roughly 700 kids, in addition to the students who meet for sports, dance, art and after-school activities at the Q House.
Around them, attendees buzzed with excitement. As they cooled down from their performance, Sigma Gamma Rho sorority members Brown and Singleton said they were excited to partner with LEAP, where several of the kids remind them of their younger selves. Both are students at Southern Connecticut State University: Brown is studying speech therapy and Singleton is studying psychology.
This is the second time that year that Sigma Gamma Rho has partnered with LEAP; the first was a free educational swimming program that the historic Black sorority held in May. While Swim 1922 (so named after the sorority’s founding in November 1922 in Indianapolis) is a national program, it gained a new urgency this year, after the Trump Administration Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) brought its drowning prevention program to a halt. In the U.S., drowning remains the leading cause of death for children between one and four years old.
When LEAP put out the call earlier this year for collaborators, t Sigma Gamma Rho was happy to help, the members said. That was true again this fall, when they heard about the Halloween festivities. As Singleton and Brown performed Friday, LEAPers and other attendees stood on the side, cheering as they sang, stepped, and sprang up from the ground until it seemed that they were soaring.
“Today is just about doing greater service,” Brown said, remembering the large role that her own local YWCA played in her life. Singleton recalled similar happy days spent at the Boys & Girls Club when she was growing up in New Jersey. “We’re very passionate about giving back and uplifting women and girls.”
In the center of the patio, musician Gammy Moses handed out percussion instruments, in constant, dance-like motion as he made his way around an impromptu drum circle, and then made his way around again a second time. An enthusiastic Spiderman, jumping up and down in a blue and red suit, grabbed a handheld cluster of jingling bells, and began to shake it. Nearby, a toddler made her way to a djembe with a woven slipcover, intrigued.
Moses, tapping a blue cowbell, jogged around one more time as the sun began to sink.
Bam-bam-go-lo / Bam-go-lo, he sang out, taking a seat at one end of the circle. He fitted his drum between his knees and began to play, the singsong drumskin making the same sound. “This,” he said as he hammered out a beat, “is what community look like.”
And it was. As a resource fair took over the gym, sisters Tyla and Tage Nesbitt chatted beside two large fabric ghosts that had gone up at some point during the afternoon. As she looked eagerly to the fun that awaited her outside, Tage—or as she wanted to be recognized that evening, the character Sandy Cheeks from Spongebob Squarepants—eagerly swung around a new swag bag from the New Haven Hiring Initiative, one of the event’s partners.
“It’s just fun,” she said. “It’s great.”
“We’re not sitting in the house. You get to go outside,” Tyla added.
Nearby, Naomi agreed. With her mom, Pamela Mouzon, she’s been to at least five of LEAP’s Halloween celebrations, and is also a member of the organization’s summer and after-school programs. When she was dreaming up a costume this year, “I just really wanted to do something scary, but like, fun and scary,” she said.
“It’s really fun,” she added of the celebration. Back outside, the low rumble of drums from Proyecto Cimarrón was starting. In just a few minutes, the group would be leading a dance tutorial as the sun set, and a chill fell over the patio. It was almost time for trick-or-treating.
From where he stood, dad Cruz Quiñones savored the scene with his three-year-old daughter Khaleesi, who was dressed in a striped dress and tiny, bright red fedora as a scary clown. In New Haven, Quiñones’ older kids are both enrolled in LEAP’s after school programming in the Dixwell neighborhood. He's grateful for it, he said.
As they played on the grass in their costumes, he bounced Khaleesi in his arms, smiling at the music and laughter that filled the space.
“This is awesome,” he said. “The streets around here are really tough. It’s awesome when they can feel safe around the neighborhood. They’ll remember this forever.”