An October campaign honoring late Baltimore City Councilwoman Bea Gaddy netted $17,000 and dozens of boxes of canned food to provide Thanksgiving dinners to the city?s neediest families, organizers announced Thursday.
The sum is the most in the annual event?s five-year history, said City Council President Sheila Dixon, who chairs the drive and is responsible for legislation that launched the annual day of giving three days after Gaddy died of breast cancer in 2001.
On the heels of a newly announced 10-year plan to combat homelessness, Dixon said she is trying to imitate Gaddy?s mission of compassion for the poor.
“But we don?t want people relying on someone else constantly giving,” Dixon said. “We want to take it to the next step.”
Gaddy?s daughters joined Dixon and representatives from the event?s corporate sponsors to trumpet the results Thursday. Dixon said $7,000 will be used to buy $25 gift cards for impoverished families like that of Octavia Hargis, who commended the program?s longevity.
With her two sons in tow, Hargis said the drive will supply food for a holiday meal her 7-year-old son, Demonte Delly, will help cook.
“It is a blessing to me and my boys that this keeps going because sometimes things like it stop,” Hargis said.
The annual Bea Gaddy Day, held Oct. 7, also traditionally includes free health screenings including mammograms, pap smears and prostate checks. Gaddy was best known for her annual Thanksgiving Day dinners ? which began on a sidewalk outside her home and moved to a middle school to accommodate as many as 20,000 residents.
Dixon called her the”Mother Teresa of Baltimore.”
