About - Bea Gaddy

Gaddy, who was elected to the City Council in 1999, also operated a family center that has served more than 1 million homeless women and children, according to her Web site.  She learned about domestic violence and poverty firsthand during her childhood in North Carolina. She said her father often threw her and her brother out of the house, and that her mother lived in constant fear of being beaten. After working as a housekeeper in Brooklyn, N.Y., for $50 a week, she came to Baltimore in 1964 as a single mother with few hopes or dreams.

But a man she met while working as a school crossing guard encouraged her to go to college, and in the early '70s, she joined the East Baltimore Children's Fund. Her home became a distribution point for food and clothing for the poor. She used the experience to found a homeless shelter, which eventually became the Bea Gaddy Family Centers Inc.

Gaddy held her first Thanksgiving dinner in 1981, feeding 39 people. The event grew each year and peaked in 1993, when Gaddy and about 2,000 volunteers served 20,000 people. The event became smaller after Gaddy was elected to the Council in 1999 as a Democrat representing East Baltimore. Last year, she served about 3,000 in a middle school cafeteria.

In 1998, Gaddy was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent chemotherapy treatments and the disease went into remission, but it came back in 2001. Gaddy had said her children would take over her organization if she were unable to run the family center.