By Bill Parry
A unique food truck was serving up maple-themed lunches on Northern Boulevard near the Clocktower Building in Long Island City last week. An eight-man work crew that dishes out maple grilled cheese sandwiches and beer-battered maple onion rings from the Snowday Food Truck are all formerly incarcerated youths.
“I got the idea when I was a teacher on Rikers Island,” said Jordyn Lexton, the truck’s operator. “I wanted to help young people just out of prison, so I went back to school and learned how to start this kind of enterprise and we went into service in April.”
Lexton went on to create a non-profit called Drive Change that builds and operates its own food trucks that hire and train young people recently released from prison. Two members of the current crew are from Queens.
A half year later the Snowday Food Truck won the Vendy Award as the Rookie of the Year, part of a showcase for the city’s best street food vendors.
“Winning that prestigious award was a huge piece of it,” Lexton said. “The pride factor is now very big on that truck, but to be the best program you have to be the best business.”
The truck sets up shop most Wednesdays at the Falchi Building, at 31-00 47th Ave. in Long Island City, the Brooklyn Navy Yards on Thursdays and Governors Island on the weekends. It is facilitated by the Fortune Society, the Long Island City organization that promotes alternatives to incarceration.
Lexton is also involved with the Entrepreneur Space, the kitchen incubator run by the Queens Economic Development Corp.
“We cook our menu and do all of our food preparation at the E-Space,” Lexton said.
The Fortune Society also teaches a culinary art class at the venue and some of the students in training will work on the truck.
“The workers are between the ages of 16 and 26 and they do rotations of six to eight months,” Lexton said. “Two have already transitioned to full-time jobs and one went back to school.”
Lexton calls the Snowday Food Truck a vehicle for social justice where young people with criminal histories can live crime-free, with bright futures full of opportunity.
“We recruit them when they get out and we help them stay out,” she said.
The food that is served from the truck is made of ingredients sourced mostly from New York state and local urban farms. Lexton developed the maple-themed menu based on French-Canadian cooking. It was on a trip to Canada that she was inspired not just for the menu but for the name of the truck.
“The whole idea of a snow day represents the ultimate joy and freedom,” she said. “That’s what we strive to create for the crew.”
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparry@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.
