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Feeding the Hungry, Clothing the Naked

A Bea Gaddy Bio

In 1933, Beatrice Frankie Fowler was born in Wake Forest, North Carolina, outside Raleigh. Her family was dirt poor
but didn't have time to worry about the Great Depression. Her stepfather, violent and alcoholic, threw her and her
brother out of the house when there was not enough food. "I know what's its like to hunt for food in a garbage can
and eat out of a dumpster. As a homeless person I did it for years. I was left to fend for myself as a child, raped before
I was a teenager, and tormented by the bonds of poverty."

By her mid-twenties, she was a high-school dropout and twice-divorced mother of five. For years, she went on and off
welfare, working as a maid and a nurse's assistant, trying to get her life on track. Desperate to escape her
impoverishment, she moved to New New York and then, in 1964, to Baltimore, where she befriended an attorney in
her neighborhood named Bernard Pitts. He did for her what she would alter do for so many: he saw her potential.

With his support, she earned a college degree and became a social worker. Her passion, she realized, was helping
others.

"When I was in junior high," says Cynthia Brooks, 42, Gaddy's daughter, "I remember the house filling up with boots
one week because she had organized everybody to donate winter boots for kids. Later, she collected toys at Christmas
for poor children and arranged for kids in the community to attend summer camp.

The Thanksgiving event started in 1981. After federal funding cuts eliminated her job, Gaddy found herself back on
food stamps. With $290 she won on a 50-cent lottery ticket -- a longtime habit that became an unorthodox method of
fund-raising for her organization -- she bought enough food to feed 39 of her equally hungry neighbors. It was then
that she decided to start a community kitchen for the needy run by the needy. She begged grocers fro donations and
gave away whatever she collected.

In the early years, the Thanksgiving dinner took place on the sidewalk in front of her home, where Gaddy did much of
the cooking herself. Eventually, she moved to a nearby middle school to accommodate thousands of diners. She even
sent meals and used-winter clothing to shelters in North Carolina, Virginia, and New Jersey. Ever resourceful and
doggedly persistent, Gaddy relied on an expanding network of donors: Shady Brook Farms donated turkeys; local
grocers, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and green beans; and the Maryland Correctional facility in Hagerstown,
Maryland did the cooking. Without these and many other contributions, Gaddy estimated that the bill would be several
hundred thousand dollars.

In addition to the food pantry, Gaddy operated a shelter for women and children, a furniture bank, and a program that
refurbished abandoned rowhouses for impoverished families. A cancer victim's center and a drug rehabilitation house
were slated to be next. In August 2002 she became an ordained minister, so that she could marry and bury the poor at
no cost.. her outreach work in the inner-city represented a very personal mission, because the broken lives that she
encountered were often reminiscent of her own struggles. For she had been homeless, unemployed, and hungry. Once
he had a home of her own, she thought nothing of sharing it with strangers living on the street.

Many of her admirers associated Gaddy with a single day of the year: Thanksgiving. Her holiday feast became
legendary. It grew from an intimate gathering of a few dozen neighbors to a sprawling all-day affair, with as many as
20,000 people, on the grounds of a nearby middle school. The event made Gaddy, whom volunteers called "Shorty"
(she was five feet three inches tall), almost larger than life.

Known as the Mother Teresa of Baltimore and Saint Bea, she was named one of former president George Bush's
"thousand points of light" and once selected Family Circle magazine's woman of the year.

Died October 3, 2001 of complications from breast cancer. She was 68. Baltimore, for the first time in twenty years,
did not have Bea Gaddy on Thanksgiving to feed and clothe the poor. People were relieved however that the Gaddy
tradition will be carried on by her daughters and friends.

“The officers and members of William T. Wallace Lodge #134 take pride in supporting the Bea Gaddy Foundation.
Working closely with Mrs. Gaddy’s daughter Sister Cynthia Brooks (Amulet Chapter #85 OES – PHA) we take pride
in supporting during Thanksgiving, Christmas and throughout the year. It is truly a pleasure to work under the
banner of a woman who gave so much to the people of Baltimore. We would ask that everyone participate in their
respective communities and support those charitable organizations supporting the needs of those less fortunate in the
world.”

TO BECOME A PART OF THIS TRADITION OR DONER PLEASE VISIT THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE:
WWW.BEA-GADDY-FAMILY-CENTER.ORG

OR EMAIL THE BEA GADDY FAMILY CENTER AT:
SUPPORT@BEA-GADDY.ORG

PLEASE BRING DONATIONS TO:
425 NORTH CHESTER STREET
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND 21231

OR MAIL MONETARY DONATIONS TO:
P.O. BOX 38501
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND 21231

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CALL (410) 563-2749