More than three decades later, granddaughter Jadi Flynn and great-granddaughter Megan Walker are the next generations of volunteers to organize what’s now a holiday tradition offering pancakes, coffee and a bittersweet story of perseverance.
It all began when Slate drove his wife to work one yuletide: “He dropped my grandmother off,” Flynn recalls, “and then drove around and realized there was no place open to eat.”
Slate went on to prepare food for 50 people ranging from the homeless to those simply hankering not to cook. The breakfast has grown tenfold since he turned it over in 1997 to area resident Francis Willette, who turned it over a decade later to Deirdre Baker, who returned it recently to the founder’s family. But continuing to feed up to 500 diners and 250 recipients of delivered meals has its challenges.
Consider Baker. When the already busy working mother took over the event, she said she’d give it five years. After her fourth in 2010, she wondered if her plate was too full, as she couldn’t shake a stuffy nose. Seeing a doctor, she discovered she had sinus cancer. To reach it, surgeons had to sacrifice her right eye in an operation that morphed into a half-dozen, followed by six weeks of daily three-hour trips for radiation.
Wearing an eye patch, Baker nevertheless oversaw her fifth Christmas Breakfast.
“I’ve had so much support from my friends and community,” she said of the people who shaved their heads in solidarity or chauffeured her to treatments. “This is my way of paying it forward.”
Flynn, like Baker, was determined to beat it. But a week before Christmas 2013, she died unexpectedly, leaving Baker to remember what she told Slate the first year she organized the breakfast, which happened to be the last one he was alive for.
“He grabbed my hands and said, ‘Thank you so much for taking this over — I love you.’ I told him not to worry, it would continue on.”
Baker led efforts one more time in 2013 before training Judy Flynn’s daughter and granddaughter, who are set to join 60 fellow volunteers in offering 110 pounds of pancake mix, 210 pounds of eggs, 1,500 hash browns, 2,400 sausage links and 12 pounds of coffee Sunday from 8 to 11 a.m. at Brattleboro’s American Legion.
“It’s nice to see the wide variety of people who come from all walks of life,” Walker says.
“And it’s such a wonderful feeling,” adds Jadi Flynn, “to keep my grandfather’s tradition alive.”
