Judges, colleagues serve up Memorial Day cookout at St. Paul homeless shelter

Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press
Updated ·3 min read

Judge R.A. “Jim” Randall was among the first gubernatorial appointments to the Minnesota Court of Appeals after its creation by constitutional amendment in 1982. It’s a sizable feather in his cap, but Randall — who had been active in the 1990s in a self-help society that put addicts to work rehabbing houses — swore he would never forget that the people in his courtroom were every bit his equals in the eyes of the law.

Dick Long, a like-minded businessman, split his time between running Long Cadillac in St. Paul and volunteering with the city’s homeless and chemically dependent.

When Long donated a barbecue grill to Catholic Charities’ downtown Dorothy Day Center, Randall figured he could take up a collection among his fellow judges and coax a few to help him fry up burgers one holiday weekend. Bret Byfield, a longtime outreach worker to the homeless and drummer for the band The Rhythm Pups, brought in live music.

That was 21 years ago, and the annual Memorial Day weekend tradition — an unofficial launch of summer at St. Paul’s most public-facing downtown shelter and resource center for the homeless — has never skipped a beat.

“I said, ‘I could do that,'” recalled Randall, sitting Friday in the dining hall of the Catholic Charities St. Paul Opportunity Center, surrounded by a cadre of recent law school graduates and a who’s who of the state’s top legal minds, all dressed in aprons and disposable food prep gloves instead of power suits and judicial robes.

In all, Friday’s cookout for the homeless — which shifted indoors at the last minute due to a morning rain — drew some 20 to 25 law clerks, eight judges from the Minnesota Court of Appeals, Minnesota Supreme Court Justices Sarah Hennesy and Gordon Moore, and U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge William Fisher.

Also present were nearly 700 guests, well fed with hamburgers, coleslaw, baked beans, chips, soda and ice cream donated by the state’s judicial workers. Not all the guests were homeless. Longtime Catholic Charities patron Eric Foster said he had found stable housing, but he and others still returned each year for the annual rite of summer.

“I appreciate the food,” said Foster with a smile. “It’s a routine for me, just to come down and see the people I haven’t seen in a while. I was homeless at one time.”

Randall, now retired from the bench, was joined at his table by another volunteer food server — Appeals Court Senior Judge Jill Halbrooks, who happily agreed to help Randall 21 years ago, and on every Friday before Memorial Day ever since. Next to her was her daughter, medical malpractice attorney Besse McDonald, who has accompanied her mom at the annual barbecue since high school.

“It’s kind of an alumni event,” said Judge Diane Bratvold, who has sat on the Court of Appeals since 2016. “It brings a smile to everybody’s face.”

Being a judge “is an important role, but it’s a tough role. In some ways we’re a heavy-handed parent, always telling people what to do,” added Bratvold, who now chairs the event.

“All of us need a helping hand sometimes,” she said. “It just brings us together in a way as a community that we don’t usually get to do. I like the fact that it’s Memorial Day because we’re here thinking about our larger family.”

Byfield recalled working closely with Randall back in the 1990s on the Phoenix Group, an organized effort to put “imperfect people, as we all are” to work fixing up homes, with the goal of “engag(ing) with each other as assets, not as problems that need to treated.”

He was there 21 years ago when the first Memorial Day weekend barbecue launched, and he was happy to be there again Friday.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” Byfield said, “that has been embedded in the culture of the court.”

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