DANVERS — Debby “Ma Duke” Marticio’s bright blue eyes were wet with tears Thursday morning when she realized she was going to keep her home.
A representative from Odd Fellows, a Beverly-based masonic group, walked into Jimmy’s Famous Roast Beef & Seafood during Marticio’s interview with the Item to tell her the group is giving her $5,000.
“This should get you there,” said Bill Palmquist of Danvers.
Marticio has spent more than a decade helping those in need. This year, they were able to return the favor.
On Thanksgiving, Marticio fed more than 3,000 people on the North Shore, many in Lynn, Peabody, and Saugus, continuing a tradition she started 12 years ago. After completing that logistical challenge, however, she almost immediately faced a financial one when she learned her home was in foreclosure and would be auctioned on Dec. 27 if she didn’t come up with $26,000.
But friends and strangers — many of whom have been on the receiving end of Marticio’s generosity — didn’t let that happen.
A GoFundMe page to help raise the money was created on Dec. 12. As of Thursday at 6 p.m., $25,400 had been raised. The $5,000 donation Thursday morning surpassed the fundraising goal.
For Palmquist, like the others who donated, helping Ma Duke was an easy call to make.
“I haven’t met anybody who does as much as she does, or who is as caring as she is,” he said.
Marticio’s generosity goes beyond cooking meals around the holidays. She raises money to send children with life-threatening illnesses to Camp Sunshine in Point Sebago, Maine; provides Care Southcoast with pet food and money to cover adoption fees; and collects money for Warrior in Need and Operation Troop Support.
This past Thanksgiving, Marticio was overjoyed to have served meals to more people in need than ever before — not too shabby for an operation she started out of her kitchen a dozen years ago.
“Ever since I was little, I wanted to do something like that,” said Marticio. “When I got my own house I said ‘Now I can do it.’ It started with 150 meals, now look where we are.”
The turkeys are cooked by volunteers the day before the holiday and distributed across the state. This year, Marticio’s efforts helped many in Peabody, Lynn, and Saugus, she said. She distributed an extra 700 turkeys to the Merrimack Valley, where gas explosions in September left about 8,000 residents displaced. More than 2,000 homes remained without gas service in Lawrence, North Andover, and Andover as of Thanksgiving.
It was less than three weeks later that she learned she was losing her own home to foreclosure.
“My husband was trying to fix it, but it didn’t work,” said Marticio.
The money she needs is for missed mortgage payments and back taxes.
An auction on the front lawn of the Cortland Road house is planned for two days after Christmas, unless Marticio can provide the bank with the $26,000, she said.
She plans to drop a check in the mail for the full amount Friday morning.
“I’m starting to relax,” she said Thursday night. “I might actually get some sleep tonight.”
She has lived in the home since 1985. Right now, she’s raising her teenage grandchildren there with her husband Michael and her daughter-in-law, Tracy, who has guardianship of the grandchildren. The family has also taken in a family friend.
“I just can’t believe it,” said Marticio. “In one week. I’m shaking.”