Bed-Stuy Foot Soldiers Make Bank Shoveling Out Scores of Homes after Christmas Blizzard

Lanzilote for News

Bed-Stuy Foot Soldiers set an earnings record digging out Brooklyn brownstones after the blizzard.

BY JAKE PEARSON

A group of Bedford-Stuyvesant teens turned last week's blizzard into a cash bonanza.

The Bed-Stuy Foot Soldiers, teens who shovel, sweep and clean the neighborhood's stately brownstones, earned nearly $5,000 last week shoveling snow - a one-day record for the group.

"This was the biggest storm we've ever dealt with, the biggest and the scariest," said Foot Soldiers founder Barnabas Shakur, 30. "There were four times I thought I was going to hit a car."

The storm was a blessing for the group, part of Shakur's youth nonprofit Project Re-Generation, which operates on a shoestring budget.

"We've been having a lot of financial problems," said Shakur. "The [Foot Soldiers] are what's kept the organization alive."

Only about 20 of the Foot Soldiers' 100 members were able to brave the snow last week and travel around the neighborhood in Shakur's Ford F-150 pickup, stopping at houses and clearing the sidewalks, porches and steps.

"We'd just split up into groups of four people, and it would take us about 10 to 15 minutes to clear a house," said Terrell Ellis, 17, a junior at Abraham Lincoln High School. "We work as a team. We know what to do and how to do it."

So when signs of a storm came on Christmas Day, Shakur made sure to send out a team of volunteers to throw down anti-icing salt on the steps and sidewalks of brownstone homes.

But after the last snowflakes fell Monday, the neighborhood was so covered in snow, Shakur wasn't able to coordinate enough soldiers to travel to the 184 homes that paid an annual fee for immediate snow shoveling.

"Monday and Tuesday we were immobile, we couldn't move," said Shakur, who finally got enough workers out in the field on Wednesday and Thursday to clear as many houses as they could. "The streets weren't clear, workers couldn't get to the office, trains were down; it was crazy."

Residents who pay for the Foot Soldiers' services can buy various plans that range from a $49 one-shot-cleaning to a $865 yearly service charge.

The soldiers were able to clear almost 100 homes - and picked up 50 new clients as they worked.

"Let me say, I can empathize with the Department of Sanitation," said Shakur. "It was really hard out there: We couldn't move, our trucks got stuck ... it was horrible, but we got it done."

Foot soldier Joey Horne, 19, said he didn't mind the cold - and felt good after an elderly woman thanked him for shoveling her out of her house.

"She said, 'Thank you and keep up the good work,'" said Horne. "It was actually fun and it was great exercise."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2011/01/04/2011-01-04_bedstuy_foot_soldiers_make_bank_shoveling_out_scores_of_homes_after_christmas_bl.html#ixzz1CIjb4flE