Bea Gaddy was named one of President Bush's "Thousand Points of Light" in 1992. Two years later it would be understandable if she felt more like a melted candle.
Ms. Gaddy said yesterday that donations to her food bank in East Baltimore for poor people decreased tremendously after reports of shoddy recordkeeping that led to an Internal Revenue Service audit earlier this year.
But, she said, despite the drop in contributions and more than $8,000 owed to Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., her annual Thanksgiving dinner for the poor will take place and she expects to feed even more than the 28,000 people she fed last Thanksgiving.
A May 29 article in The Sun reported that the Patterson Park Emergency Food Center was chaotically run by Ms. Gaddy and that she had done a woeful job keeping the financial records required by the IRS for nonprofit organizations.
Ms. Gaddy, 61, said donations to the food bank dwindled as word spread about her bookkeeping and of the subsequent IRS audit. She said her fund-raising drive for this year's Thanksgiving dinner has received only $18,340, compared with $36,663 in hand at this time last year.
"The damage is done now. I've been threatened. People have threatened to kill me. They think I have money hidden in the basement. They set up some guys to break into the basement to get that money," she said. "But I'm not going anywhere."
The food bank has kept its tax-exempt status, but earlier this month the IRS did send Ms. Gaddy a letter detailing additional records that must be supplied if it is to continue to be recognized as a nonprofit agency.
"You have now instituted acceptable recordkeeping procedures, but failure to maintain adequate records in the future may result in revocation of your exempt status," said the Nov. 7 letter from Paul M. Harrington, the IRS district director in Baltimore.
Domenic LaPonzina, the IRS public affairs officer in Baltimore, said a taxpayer's returns could not be discussed but the letter should be viewed only as an advisory. "These are helpful pointers or guidelines," he said.
Ms. Gaddy said yesterday that everything the IRS wanted had been done. "IRS just showed us how to put things in better order. We already had every document they need. We put things the way they wanted and it has been accepted," she said. "Everything we have done is available for viewing, by appointment, if anyone is interested."
Financial records for the emergency food center can be inspected at its offices in the former Chesapeake Bank building at Lakewood and Monument streets.
"I always kept records, all of these years," Ms. Gaddy said. "I had my records tied up in stockings and some tied up in tape and I wouldn't take them loose until the auditor got here. We have the check number and amount of the very first contribution made to us in 1981."
Ms. Gaddy said she understood why people stopped giving money to her agency after hearing the reports of financial disarray.
DTC "I would have stopped giving, too. But I think first I would have asked for a rundown; I would have asked what happened to the money I gave. And they could have gotten it," she said. "I'm not a liar or thief. I am going to still spend people's money the very same way. I'll just do a better job of doing this job." Ms. Gaddy said she asked the city of Baltimore to help her agency, but she believes that a feud with Housing Authority officials who wanted to take over her program had kept that from happening.
Ms. Gaddy said she began collecting food for the needy in 1981 while she was herself struggling against poverty. The North Carolina native said she came to Baltimore from New York in 1964 and was doing fine until she was laid off with five children to feed. "You don't think you can do anything to help anyone else. You don't think you can help yourself, until it just dawns on you that you are so low now that you can't get any lower unless you go through the ground," she said.