Culture & Community | Fashion | How to Help | Arts & Culture | New Haven Schools | Whalley/Edgewood/Beaver Hills
Seven-year-old Latae Hammie, who wants to be a firefighter when she grows up. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Dressed from head to toe in pink, 7-year-old Latae Hammie studied the rows and rows of shoes in front of her. There were high tops with tan checks dotting the canvas, black and white low tops with velcro, copper-colored Timberland Boots designed for tiny feet. Carefully, she pulled a rainbow-toned sneaker from the shelf and held it up to her mom, Lakahn Harris. She had found her 21st century glass slipper—and it was about to make all her wildest recess dreams come true.
Saturday evening, Latae was one of 40 kids at Priceless Decisions’ third annual back-to-school shoe giveaway, the brainchild of New Havener Rosalyn Biggins and regional partners at EbLens on Whalley Avenue in New Haven. Since 2018, she has organized the event as a way to take the cost of shoes off parents’ hands as their children head back to school. She returned to it last year after a pandemic hiatus in 2020.
“I can give a family a break on this one thing,” she said Saturday, as kids and families filled the space with exclamations of delight and the occasional sprint from one end of the store to the other. “You don’t have to choose between buying new sneakers and paying a light bill.”
Rosalyn Biggins and her 14-year-old daughter, Kaylee Naree Lewis. Lucy Gellman Photos.
It’s personal, she added. Biggins grew up in the city’s Newhallville neighborhood, and saw firsthand how cruel kids could be when their classmates came to school wearing clothes and shoes that they had outgrown. Even as a kid, she was also acutely aware of how economically segregated the city was. “You could always tell what kids didn’t have,” she said. She hated that her peers often got bullied “really over a pair of sneakers.”
Even then, she wanted to find a way to help. After graduating from high school, Biggins studied at Post University in Waterbury, where she did her graduate work in substance abuse counseling. She founded Priceless Decisions, so named because she knows “that a single decision” can change a person’s life, she said. She found work with the federal government, first with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and more recently with the National Suicide Hotline.
While she moved to Baltimore in January of this year, she and her 14-year-old daughter, Kaylee Naree Lewis, are back in New Haven frequently to see family. Saturday, Kaylee recalled how she often sees her mom in action, whether it’s putting together personal hygiene packets or making sure someone is able to get access to a warm meal and transportation, whatever their financial circumstances.
Top: Liana Avant and Rey Terique. Avant attended Post University with Biggins, and drove from New Jersey to support her friend. Bottom: The EbLens staff in action. Lucy Gellman Photos.
“It’s about helping people no matter what they’re going through,” Biggins said. In that spirit each year, she raises $5,000 for the shoe drive—enough to provide around 40 students with $150 worth of shoes. For most kids, that works out to between two and three pairs of sneakers. She has always worked with EbLens, both for its central location and a staff that is always happy to help. The store did not reply to a request for comment in time for publication.
It feels especially pressing this year, she added: kids across the country are already dealing with higher rates of depression and anxiety than they were before the pandemic.
Around her, kids walked and jogged through the store, making a beeline for a bright shoe display on the back wall. Bobbing among the sneakers, Latae tried to find the perfect pair for her first day of second grade. Every few moments, her aunt, Keona Harris, would pull another sneaker from the shelf for Latae’s approval. The two struck a quick, delicate choreography that Lakahn Harris watched with a smile.
This year, Lakahn Harris said, the event was a blessing for her and her daughter. A registered CNA, Harris kept her job at the beginning of the pandemic, but had to stop working several months ago. As a mom, she sees how expenses pile up, from new school supplies to food to clothes.
Top: Proud aunt Keona Harris and 7-year-old Latae Hammie. Bottom: Tre Ragin and his mom, Sabrina Smith. "It's important to me to give back to the community and I want to set an example for my son," Smith said. Lucy Gellman Photos.
She’s far from alone: in the past two and a half years, the pandemic has made life harder for parents and especially for moms, millions of whom were driven out of the American workforce when Covid-19 hit. In addition to the shoe giveaway, Biggins and Priceless Decisions have also helped her—and dozens of others—with her resume and cover letter as she applies to jobs.
As she spoke, Latae spotted the rainbow sneakers, which looked as though a basin of tie-dye had spilled over them, and left explosions of color in all the right places. They called to her, this young, wide-eyed student who arrived dressed in a princess gown and rhinestone-studded slippers, but shared aspirations to become a firefighter when she grows up. She cradled a single shoe, not even looking to see if it came in her size.
“They’re pretty!” she exclaimed. “I like trying them on and getting them because I can wear them to school.”
Top: 13-year-old Keara Douglas and Ahlayah Spruill. Bottom: Jayden and Karen Jones. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Nearby, 13-year-old Keara Douglas buzzed around the store in a black and white Priceless Decisions t-shirt, hopping in to volunteer whenever she saw a befuddled kid or parent who looked like they might need help. A student at Mauro Sheridan Interdistrict Magnet School, Keara said she loves helping with the event for the smiles that seem to multiply through the store.
“It’s very exciting to see their faces,” she said. As if on cue, Jayden Jones burst into a huge smile close to the register, where he and his mom balanced two boxes of shoes.
In one, a crisp pair of Vans waited to walk him into the seventh grade at East Rock School in style. In the other, a pair of Adidas sneakers had recess written all over them. After years of remote school and a return to in-person learning last year, Jayden said he’s excited to get back to his friends and his classes.
“He’s not into sneakers, but we are definitely taking advantage of this,” said his mom, Karen Jones, who is retired. “It means everything. It means everything. It’s one less thing to have to worry about.”
Kenisha Henderson with Khalise, Dyshant, Khalil and Sha’lese (in her arms). Lucy Gellman Photos.
That was also true for Kenisha Henderson, a lifelong New Havener and mom of four who said she was grateful for the event. As a single mom, Henderson works two jobs, and then returns home to care for her children—which is also a full-time job. When she heard about the show giveaway through her 9-year-old son’s football team, she entered her two oldest kids into a lottery for the giveaway. Both of them were able to pick up shoes.
“Times is hard,” she said, resting her two-year-old daughter Sha’lese on her hip. “As a mom, and a single mom, it’s very hard.”
Back at the front of the store, Biggins took a moment to joke around with a group of friends, all of whom had slipped on matching Priceless Decisions t-shirts in black and white. She checked a spreadsheet carefully, confirming that the first 20 kids had cashed out. It was a little past 8 p.m., and the store still buzzed with energy. In a line, over ten more parents quietly waited with their boxes as their kids made EbLens into their playground.
She turned around, and got back to work.