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Fifth Street Ministries holds annual Thanksgiving meal
Regan Hill photo
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Published: November 27, 2009
In the doorway of the Fifth Street Shelter Ministries kitchen Thursday, Elizabeth Liotta told the story of her daughter, Danielle.
Liotta smiled as she spoke, but her watery eyes — tears on the verge of falling — betrayed the kind of pain that may never completely dissipate.
"She was all you could hope for in a child," Liotta said. "She was like a saint."
Danielle Liotta was killed in a car accident in June 2007, shortly after completing her freshman year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
But for years before her death, Danielle had spent most of her free time helping others.
"She always talked about how blessed we were," her mother said. "And she volunteered everywhere."
And that is what brought Liotta and her husband, Michael, to Fifth Street on Thanksgiving morning.
"My heart is broken," Elizabeth said. "But I know Danielle would be here, and so we're here. I question God why she died, but I know she lives on through others."
The Liottas were two of several dozen volunteers who cooked and served about 150 meals to Statesville's homeless and needy.
Among them was Jeff McDade, a resident of the shelter, whose past week was something Hollywood screenwriters might want to get their hands on.
His story begins some three decades ago when he was seduced by a young woman who wanted a child.
"She told me she had a dream that she would meet a man with blonde hair and blue eyes and have a baby," McDade recalled while waiting on his Thanksgiving meal to be served.
"It was just a one-night fling," he added. "But she got pregnant."
The pregnancy resulted in the birth of a boy. But McDade moved to California soon after the brief relationship. And though he saw his son on a rare occasion, he lost complete contact with him when the boy's mother died in 1993.
McDade eventually moved back to Iredell County and hoped he would find his son, but he had no idea how that would happen.
But last week, while sitting at a table at the shelter, he saw two men communicating with each other through sign language.
That interested McDade because his son is deaf. He moved closer to the men and discovered that one of the men had one brown eye and one blue eye — the same odd features his son was born with — and that the younger man bore an incredible likeness to him.
It was, in fact, his long-lost son.
"It's like something out of a movie," McDade said.
"We spent all week writing back and forth to each other, and I know a little bit of signing," he said. "It's been just about the best week of my life and I'm so thankful to have had it."
It's been a good couple of months for a man and woman named Jimmy and Bertha, who say they have plenty to be thankful for.
The two met at Fifth Street in June.
"I was just sitting outside one day and something told me to turn my head," Jimmy recalled. "And when I did, I saw her. So I walked over to here and just told her, 'You're going to be my wife.' "
Jimmy said he didn't even know if she was already married.
"I didn't know a thing about her," he said. "And she probably thought I was crazy. And I probably was."
Jimmy said he eventually "got to" Bertha.
"I stayed on her until she said, 'Yes,' " he said.
The two both said "I do," in October when they were married by the Rev. Gary West, Fifth Street's executive director.
"It's been amazing," said the newlywed, Mrs. Bertha Saddler. "I know we have a long way to go, but I'm very happy."
Nile Pritchard shares that emotion.
Pritchard celebrated his third year of sobriety Thursday, news he shared with Fifth Street's other Thanksgiving guests.
He also announced that he had been accepted at the NASCAR Technical Institute in Mooresville and begins classes in December.
"I'm 50 years old and I'm starting over," Pritchard said. "I'm following a lifelong dream."
Hope Davis believes in dreams and was wearing a shirt that described that belief.
But Davis also believes in reality. And that's why she brought her two young daughters, four nieces and a nephew to help out at Fifth Street on Thanksgiving.
"I think this teaches them an important lesson," said Davis, who is town for the holiday visiting relatives. "When we first got here they said, 'I'm scared, I'm scared.' But then they got into it, and I think they understand the importance of giving back something."
And, according to Fifth Street Program Director Patti West, that is a lesson the whole community took part in over the past two years.
West pointed out that Thursday's was the first Thanksgiving meal served in the new Fifth Street facility.
"We've been in this building almost a year now," West said. "And it still makes me cry to think about it. To be in a building like this is beyond words, and to have made it a reality says so much about this community."
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