Food as Healing
Breaking Bread Remix is a project piloted by Shayla Streater, with support from the Neighborhood Leadership Project as a member of the 2026 cohort.
“Food is love,” said Shayla Streater to the small group who gathered to cook and share a meal in the New Haven People’s Center on Howe Street. “Food carries a vibrational frequency, and when it’s prepared in a space filled with love and joy, it absorbs that energy.”
As a member of the 2026 cohort of the Neighborhood Leadership Program at The Community Foundation, Streater is developing Breaking Bread Remix, a program intended to bring people together for intimate, intergenerational conversations about food and healing.
The Neighborhood Leadership program provides training, support and funding for projects that make a difference in your community.
It started for Streater over a decade ago, when she began breaking bread with another expecting mom who became a close friend, and another mother who had relocated back to her hometown of New Haven.. “It was something I did as a one-parent household and a mom who was looking to connect,” she said.
For nine years the group grew and built traditions together. “I think that’s at the heart of families and community: we get to create our own traditions,” said Streater.
When she had her youngest daughter, she was diagnosed with preeclampsia, and told she would always be reliant on blood pressure medication. But Streater set out to explore food alternatives, and found that by changing her relationship to food and nourishment, her high blood pressure dissipated.
Streater has since built out Breaking Bread Remix to include chef speakers and facilitators, as well as a designated elder who shares wisdom while attendees share their food.
“I love hearing the stories of our elders – the things that they've done, the work that they've done – and I wanted to show others as a way of honoring them. An invited elder comes out to be nourished, cared for and celebrated as one of our community’s most respected members; and in return, they share part of their life and their story.”
Streater is planning to formally launched the program this spring, and has events scheduled for the remainder of the year.
“To me, Breaking Bread is a healing space. People come and can kind of put down their mask and just be amongst others, no matter who you are in the community. You get to be yourself, your authentic self in the community, around the table, eating, sharing a meal,” she said.
Cherryll LaFond, owner of Caribbean Home-Style Products LLC, attended the February event at The People’s Center, and described the experience as “mind-blowing” and “therapeutic.”
“You're not just eating food, but you're eating something that's healthy, with healthy conversation and healthy bonding,” she said. “It’s an intimate experience. You’ve prepared a meal together – so that bonds you with the group – and then you sit and listen to all these diverse stories or testimonies. I haven’t gotten over the experience yet.”
In addition to the friendships that formed that afternoon, and the feeling of unity she took with her, LaFond said she has already made some of the vegan recipes again. She described her surprise that vegan recipes could be so filling and delicious.
“What's beautiful about cooking together is that it immediately breaks down barriers,” said Tagan Engel, a food justice activist and journalist who attended the event in February. “It is a perfect opportunity to go from this experience of cooking together, to eating together and then talking together, that you can enter into much deeper conversation and connection with people than you could through trying to have some kind of facilitated conversation.”
“For me, it's all about connecting,” said Streater. “And I feel like food is that sort of nucleus. Like, you bring food to the table, I'm coming to eat, right?"
