People donated $30,000 to Chef Ariq after reading his story. He put it back into the community.
"People gave me money and I decided to give it back," said Ariq Barrett, founder of Black Kidz Can Cook and Kidz Meals on Wheels.
Ariq Barrett has never forgotten the words his grandmother Alverta Jefferson instilled in him as a child.
“My grandmom always told me ‘With a closed, tight fist nothing can get in or out, but when you open it up to other people, you sow seeds in the lives of others,’” he said.
And so, when Inquirer readers donated more than $30,000 to a GoFundMe page set up in Barrett’s name after reading his story in January, he knew just what to do.
“People gave me money and I decided to give it back,” he said. “You’ve got to pay it forward because you don’t know how you could be changing somebody’s life.”
Barrett, a 37-year-old chef and father of three, used the donations to keep his Black Kidz Can Cook summer camp program alive and to bring 80 more kids into the camp this year, free of charge. The funds have also allowed him to make his pandemic-era program, Kidz Meals on Wheels, a permanent nonprofit that delivers healthy meals to kids, all year round.
He’s also used the donations to host Breaking Bread dinners and conversations at community centers with young people; he gave three $500 grants to teens living in youth shelters so they could attend prom; and he provided $100 grocery store gift cards to 12 LGBTQ young people living in transitional housing.
“I was at the point where I felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel … and what those donations did for me, it gave me a way to feel important again, it gave me a way to help other people,” Barrett said. “I wanted to say thank you to them, to those people who donated, because you never want to get away from that.”
When The Inquirer profiled Barrett as part of its We The People series, he was living in a Center City shelter, due to a series of health and housing setbacks. Barrett’s landlord had lost her house, leaving him without a home, and he’d lost a foot and sight in one eye due to complications from diabetes and necrotizing fasciitis.
Despite his hardships, Barrett was most concerned that his Black Kidz Can Cook summer camp — through which more than 300 kids have learned about cooking, nutrition, and community service since 2015 — was in jeopardy of not returning this year.
I learned of Barrett when I came across a GoFundMe page Attic Brewing Co. owner Laura Lacy started for him. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting quarantine, Barrett used his own money to make boxed lunches out of his Kensington home and hand them out to kids on the street.
When Lacy heard about his work, she offered up her taproom as a place to make the lunches. There, dozens of volunteers gathered with Barrett to make, box, and deliver more than 12,000 lunches to kids’ doorsteps from March to July 2020. He called the program Kidz Meals on Wheels.
More than a year later, when Barrett fell on hard times, Lacy started the GoFundMe to raise money to cover his medical and housing expenses.
The fund, which was created Dec. 10, raised about $3,000 over a month. On Jan. 19, Barrett’s story ran in The Inquirer and i the fund skyrocketed to more than $35,000.
Barrett was in tears.
“Honestly, I was surprised and amazed. I realized, Philly supports Philly,” he said. “It restored hope for me and that’s what I go off.”
Barrett, who’d tried to secure housing through the Philadelphia Housing Authority for years, got a call from PHA shortly after the story published, saying they had a one-year voucher for an apartment for him in Frankford. He thinks it was one of the local politicians who reached out to him after the story who helped get him in, but he’s not sure who.
The folks at Vetri Community Partnership — the nonprofit cofounded by Philly chef Marc Vetri that helps kids and families “lead healthier lives through fresh food, hands-on experiences, and education” — were also moved by Barrett’s story.
Vetri Community Partnership brought their mobile teaching kitchen to community centers where Barrett has served meals and they’re bringing it to his summer camp as well. Chief executive officer Maddy Booth has offered Barrett advice and guidance on navigating the nonprofit world.
“He is just the most genuinely thoughtful, kind, and giving person,” Booth said.
Barrett also received a $2,000 donation from the Schwartz Foundation, which supports nonprofits that serve underserved children, and a $2,500 grant from the Alston-Beech Foundation.
I’m just being little old me so to be recognized by so many organizations that have been around so long, I was very humbled,” Barrett said.
But for every donation Barrett received, he got three times as many requests for help from people in need after his story ran, he said. And he tried to fulfill each request within 24 hours.
“It was nonstop,” Barrett said. “People were calling at 1 a.m. to tell me their kids were hungry.”
The continued need led Barrett to permanently solidify Kidz Meals on Wheels as a nonprofit. The organization now has a seven-member board of directors, including Deja Lynn Alvarez, the director of community engagement for World Health Care Infrastructures and the LGBTQ care coordinator for the Philadelphia Department of Health.
“Ariq is always trying to figure out ‘How can I help? Where can I make a difference?’” Alvarez said. “With everything he’s dealing with, he doesn’t let it stop him. He’s actually quite remarkable.”
While Barrett already lost sight in one eye, due to a detached retina, a preventative procedure to stop the same loss of sight in the other eye this year had the opposite effect, leaving him nearly blind in both eyes. He can’t read or see faces now, only silhouettes, but doctors are hopeful he’ll regain sight within a year.
“When I tell my story, I don’t tell it for pity, I tell it for encouragement,” Barrett said. “Despite my situation, me being blind, I still have a vision.”
That vision includes bringing back his Black Kidz Can Cook summer camp program to 54 Maplewood Mall in Germantown this year. In addition to the 25 returning students from ages 5 to 15 who pay between $250 and $350 to attend the eight-week camp, Barrett is sponsoring 80 kids for free.
Through a program he’s calling Project Safe Streets (”to get kids out of the streets”), two groups of 40 kids will attend a four-week session, where they’ll learn nutrition skills, prepare their own lunches, and attend a culinary prom.
There are 15 spots open in the first session, which runs July 5 to Aug. 2, and many open spots in the second session, which runs Aug. 2 through the first week of September. Those interested in applying can email Barrett at kidzmealsonwheels1215@gmail.com.
Barrett is accepting donations for the summer camp program, via the same email or online at kidzmealsonwheels.org.
Barrett’s dream is to one day open a 24-hour resource center for kids and families named after his grandmom, who always taught him to give what he had to others.
“The people that can really help and make this a reality and solidify it, I want y’all to come forth,” he said. “I’m not about the verbiage, I’m about the work, so whatever we need to do to get this work done, let’s get it done.”