Bea Gaddy Family Center Preps for Its Most Important Thursday of the Year

Eleven Thursdays before her most important one of the year, Cynthia Brooks is sitting in the Bea Gaddy Family Centers building on Chester Street, thinking about both the past and future.

Ever since her mother, the center’s beloved namesake, opened her home to neighbors in need of a Thanksgiving dinner in 1981, her family has made it their mission to feed the hungry. But hunger is not restricted to holidays.

“On Thursdays, people can get fresh vegetables so they can make it through the weekend,” says Brooks, 64, just minutes before the pantry opens at noon. “Everyone deserves to have food, however you got here, whatever your circumstance.”

Gaddy’s passion for feeding people has become her children’s as well. When the matriarch died in 2001, Brooks and her two sisters, two brothers, and foster sister took over the center that her mother, who eventually became a city councilperson, helped start two decades earlier.

The organization serves roughly 350 people a month, providing food, clothing, diapers, baby formula, and more. On Thanksgiving, that number balloons to about 50,000. Anyone in the city can enjoy turkey, green beans, sweet potatoes, and other traditional trappings that so many take for granted—all for free. The food is served on-site, as well as via delivery.

It started with a lucky streak, when Gaddy won $270 in the local lottery. “She made a Thanksgiving dinner for our family, but she stood in the doorway and invited people to come in and eat with us,” Brooks recalls. “She put this big table out and we sat there with total strangers. She had a really big heart.”

Needless to say, it takes a bit more planning and money to meet their current demand, with volunteers recruited from the community.

“It’s near and dear to [Cynthia’s] heart,” says Tracey Estep, who works as chief of operations for the Mayor’s Office of African-American Male Engagement and helps engage local youth in the effort. “It’s all [she and her siblings] knew growing up as children. When you’re a servant-leader, it doesn’t take much for you to continue that spirit of giving.”

Historically, the Thanksgiving dinner has been held at the Virginia S. Baker Recreation Center in Patterson Park, around the corner from Gaddy’s former home. Due to building maintenance, it took place in Cherry Hill last year and, as of press time, this year’s location had yet to be decided. But wherever it happens, thousands of Baltimoreans will enjoy eating a hot, homemade Thanksgiving dinner they likely wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Although Brooks won’t be one of them. “After you’ve looked at that much turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes, that’s the last thing you want,” she says. “We get Chinese food.”