Heartfelt Thanksgiving for Hundreds of Strangers
By: Neile Jones
Updated: November 23, 2012
Thanks to a mother's dedicated efforts, hundreds of people had Thanksgiving dinner in Hot Springs.Brittany Ficut ran the kitchen at Sunshine Church of the Nazarene like a field general Thursday: directing traffic, filling plates, and keeping the line moving.She recruited a small army to help, starting with a post on her Facebook page."I've always wanted to do it," Ficut said, scooping potatoes and turkey onto a plate. "I just never had enough faith in myself."But she found it earlier this month when friends started answering her post, and the support started pouring in. Ficut says friends, businesses and complete strangers contacted her with food and money. You'd never guess the 28-year-old mother of three has congestive heart failure. Ficut endured four surgeries in the last two years and has the defibrillator and pacemaker to prove it.Ficut says her family and friends helped her through the difficult times, and helping others have Thanksgiving dinner is her way of giving back.There's other people that don't have families," Ficut said. "They don't have families able to step in and able to help them, especially if someone lost their job or whatever. That's where this came in, wanting to help."Bill Branch came for the feast, and says it's better than he could have hoped for, I took a lot of hard work, but Ficut says the satisfaction of helping others is its own reward."This is what it's all about right here- giving back and helping others," Ficut said. "We need to be doing this.This is what everybody needs to do.
