This Is How We Do It (at the Citizen Advocacy Oyster Roast)

Fresh mollusks are hard to come by in the desert, so I didn’t attend my first oyster roast until I was well into my 20s.

I came hungry and stood around expectantly for a nicely plated dozen on the half shell, perhaps Rockefeller-style with some toasted breadcrumbs. At this, my new southern boyfriend laughed long and hard, then handed me a canvas glove and a knife. 

“Shove, twist, and slurp,” he instructed as I fumbled around what looked like a steaming pile of weird rocks, my blood sugar dropping by the minute. “Nevermind, you’re going to hurt yourself.” He expertly cracked me several, then like fifty more, which I sucked down like a baby bird.

“More! More!” I cried, flapping my elbows. While I’d avowed never to be dependent on a man, I was willing to make an exception in this case. Twenty-five years later he’s still feeding me, though I’ve become much more proficient at shucking my own oysters.

Admittedly, some are easier to open than others. The distinct briny deliciousness of our locally harvested bivalves, which tend to grow in clumps and require heroic strength to separate from their blade-sharp shells, come with cautionary tales about sliced arteries and nasty infections (hence the glove, better for a tight grasp.) One must also consider the old adage to only eat oysters in months that contain an “R,” lest hot weather bacteria and algae blooms find their way into one’s intestinal tract, though modern marine farming has done wonders for food safety. 

But the Chesapeake Bay variety spilling out on the tables at Chatham-Savannah Citizen Advocacy’s Oysters on the Bluff last Sunday popped open with just a poke at the hinge and a flick of the wrist, revealing fat pillows of protein that tasted of clean, cool water. I bellied right up and grabbed a knife as the busy brothers of Phi Beta Sigma poured out the steaming bivalves and emptied orange baskets of spent shells for three straight hours. (“No thanks, I’ve had enough,” said no oyster roast attendee ever.)

This annual fundraiser at the gorgeous Isle of Hope Marina always sells out, as much for the plentiful victuals as to celebrate a storied organization whose motto is “Keeping the ‘social’ in social change.” For almost 50 years, Citizen Advocacy has created positive momentum by pairing one member of the community who needs help—a protegé—with another person in the position to support them in finding it—the advocate. Protegés often have physical or developmental challenges that have sent them into the tumbler of the social service system, which tends to separate them from the rest of society. 

“The most predictable outcome of current human service spending is organized segregation…personal relationships between people help to overcome fear, myth, and discomfort that comes from not knowing one another,” explains the website of how these one-on-one connections can make room for more liberation and autonomy for protegés and an expanded sense of what is possible for all.    

Launched in the 1970s by everyone’s favorite bearded brahmin Tom Kohler, our chapter of Citizens Advocacy has historically hosted some of the best parties in town. Though the epic Community Covered Dish Supper (you’ve never seen so many casseroles!) hasn’t quite made it back from Covid, even the latest variant couldn’t keep folks away from this year’s oyster feast—or their fingers out of the communal cocktail sauce. 

“I figure the horseradish kills pretty much anything,” shrugged volunteer Jamie Johnson, who shouldered up beside me to add a generous dollop of pure shredded fire to the paper dish of Texas Pete’s. “I mean, if you can handle it.”

“Hold my beer,” I said, handing over my cup of Moon River Swamp Fox (hoppin’ props to brewmaster John Pinkerton for donating the suds.)

Sinuses properly seared, I skipped the requisite saltines for a cup of champion 5 Spot chili (similar praise to Brian and Jennifer Huskey and their staff for the delish non-shellfish palette cleansers) under the pavilion. Along the way I high-fived board chair “Inky Brittany” Curry, who began her colorful graphic information career by helping protegés map out life strategies, and the very-soon-to-be-married Coco Papy, who managed to squeeze in a few slurps between wedding planning and shuttling back and forth to Atlanta to lobby for the youth under the Gold Dome. 

Inky Brittany, Erv Tate and Audrey Richards

Protege-advocate pairs abounded, including Daniel Berksteiner and his buddy Ron, and I exchanged a quick shimmy with Citizen Advocacy’s longtime administrative magician Ashley O’Brien and her husband Rob on my way to the dance floor. The DJ spun old school bangers, and even the clouds seemed to cha-cha real smooth as folks of every ability, age, and background Wobbled and Cupid shuffled.

CA Executive Director George Seaborough surveyed the scene with a smile. Acknowledging that finding advocates for the many folks who need help presents constant work, he counts each of the 95 matches the organization currently oversees as a win. The hundreds of others who donate funds and show up to celebrate make it possible to keep going, he marveled.

“Savannah is a magical place because people still show up for each other.”

Not a surprising sentiment; after all, as Montell Jordan sang in his timeless hip-shaking anthem, “This is how we do it…”

Speaking of movers and shakers, I bounced elbows with political maven Moncello Stewart and the indefatigable Mayor Van Johnson as I headed back to the tables for another round of shellfish, where small business bon vivant Clinton Edminster promised that his crowdsourced venture Waters Cafe is almost ready to open its doors. I kibbitzed with “coastal kosher” king Gerald Schantz (recently retired from his namesake Pig & Shrimp restaurant on Tybee) and caught a hug from vivacious volunteer and Georgia Trend cover girl Leandra Mikell. 

After all this community communion, I felt my knife-wielding precision beginning to wane. Fortunately, Zev and Stellan Carroll stepped up to help; the young brothers don’t like to eat oysters but apparently love to shuck them, and they opened and lined them up faster than we could slurp them down.

“I’ve stood next to them at parties before,” nodded social entrepreneur Brad Baugh in appreciation.

The Brothers Carroll

As shadows grew long and the clinking rhythm of empty shells slowed, that familiar sense of neighborly connection, the one that feels like we are indeed all in this together, settled like a blanket on the bluff. This is how Citizen Advocacy does it—by inviting everyone and including all, and making sure there are plenty of oysters to around.

“Oh come on, you can eat a few more!” dared my old friend, the gregarious Johnny Smith. With a grin like that, how could I let him down?

Most of us were not put here to solve the big world problems or martyr ourselves into beatific pretzels. But all of us are capable of contributing—sometimes that can look like a commitment to assist a person through the social services labyrinth; other times it’s opening someone else’s oysters for them to enjoy.    

It can be a phone call, a visit, a meal, a few bucks, a kind word, a shared joke, a silent signal that we’re willing to face up to fears and myths and help one another, however we can. 

We all need someone to lean on ~ JLL

Johnny & Me