How Delco Banded Together to Save a Blind Woman’s Barbecue

Left: Drexel Hill resident Juliette Warren, a blind marathon runner who hosted a barbecue for 45 people with disabilities. Right: Delco resident Steve Kitchens, who saved the barbecue after a cook Warren had hired canceled on her at the last minute. (Photos provided.)

Juliette Warren hasn’t been able to see a thing since she was 23 years old. She’s completely blind. This is thanks to a relatively rare condition known as pseudotumor cerebri, or idiopathic intracranial hypertension. But that doesn’t mean she’s not perfectly capable of doing the things most of us do. She can also do some things most of us don’t.

Warren lives independently. She works a demanding government job. And, oh, did we mention that she’s a marathon runner?

But when it came to hosting a barbecue for 45 people with disabilities, the vast majority of them blind, at her Drexel Hill home on Saturday, she felt like she needed some help. She also wanted time to socialize. Who among us wouldn’t be a bit overwhelmed by hosting 45 people? So Warren hired a local cook to grill burgers, hot dogs, and hot sausages. But when Saturday morning came, she received a text saying he couldn’t show up.

Warren took to the Drexel Hill Community Forum group on Facebook. She posted a message at 8:47 a.m. on Saturday, explaining her dilemma. It was the first thing I saw on Facebook on Saturday morning after waking up. At 8:54 a.m., I posted about the situation on my own Facebook page. I also posted it in the Delco Restaurant Review Facebook group, which has more than 42,000 members. I wanted to help Warren out myself, but I was hosting a birthday party that afternoon for my daughter. And I had a feeling someone out there would see the posts and step up.

My texts and DMs immediately blew up. Some people couldn’t make it but wanted to donate food. Warren already had the food covered. Some said they couldn’t help out themselves but that they were reposting my post on their own pages and in other groups to find someone. I quickly accumulated a list of people who either could show up or who were trying to clear their schedules to do so. Delco really rallied.

The first person to confirm with Warren was Steve Kitchens, a truck driver for Rosati Ice, a Delco-based water ice company that has been around since 1912. Kitchens delivers the water ice all over the country, as far as Los Angeles. He tells Philly Mag that he’s not a cook. “I’m just a guy who really likes to grill,” he says.

Kitchens had planned to go spend Saturday afternoon at the pool. But when he heard about Warren’s need, he immediately canceled his plans and headed to her house. “I watched these ‘disabled’ people, but they are far from ‘disabled,'” he observes. “They were enjoying life and having a great time, and they were very welcoming to me. And I thought that once I said goodbye and left the party, I wouldn’t hear about it again.”

That was far from the case. When word got out about what happened, it became the thing that everybody in Delco was talking about. Anthony Blanche, owner of the Clam Tavern and Broadway Bar in Clifton Heights, caught wind of it and offered both Warren and Kitchens dinner for two at either restaurant. Always the giver, Warren said she wanted to give the dinner to her parents, because of how supportive they have been in her life and how helpful they were at the barbecue itself. So Blanche told them all to come in.

“I love it when people come together to make beautiful things happen, and it’s important that we all pay it forward,” says Blanche. “Hopefully their good deeds will inspire other good deeds.”

The barbecue was part of a series of social events put together by Trish and Andy Maunder, a local couple who have a daughter who is blind, and they wanted activities where she could meet other people who are blind. (The Maunders also have a company called Philly Touch Tours that works with local museums and other institutions on inclusivity initiatives and inclusive events.) The loosely-organized social group also arranges things like dance classes and beach excursions. When it came time for a summer barbecue, Warren offered up her home.

Juliette Warren, host of the Delco barbecue, at the Broad Street Run in May 2025 (photo provided)

As for her enthusiasm for running, Warren was a DI basketball player at the University of Delaware. Then she lost her sight, first in one eye and then the other. “I didn’t think being athletic was a thing I could do after that,” she says. “But then I found a group called Philadelphia Achilles, a running group for people with disabilities. And it totally changed my life.” She started with 5ks, then 10ks, then a half-marathon, then the New York City Marathon last year, and on Sunday, the day after the barbecue, she ran her first trail race, a 15k, with two guides in front of her helping her not fall into a ditch or get whacked in the head by low branches.

Warren says that while she knows that social media can be a polarizing place, she’s not actually shocked at how this all wound up. “This Drexel Hill community group helped me find Philadelphia Achilles,” she explains. “And that led me to a trip to the French Alps. And then there was the time that I solicited someone to write a Christmas card for me, and they came to my home and did that. I’m just blown away by people’s kindness.”

[Ed. Note: While there is a debate about people-first versus identity-first language, Warren says she is happy to be identified as a “blind woman.”]