By JON BAKER

PAWTUCKET — You may have seen her trolling around downtown Pawtucket about four, five years ago. She was a straggly sort, toothless, dressed in raggedy clothing. She would ride around in a motorized wheelchair begging (she called it “terrorizing”) people for money, using all sorts of excuses to glean cash to support her drug habit.

She desperately needed it to purchase crack cocaine, heroin or anything else she could get her constantly-shaking hands on. The drugs made her feel — at least temporarily — calm and at peace in her own warped little world.
Cathy Aiello knew it was a horrendous, sad way to live, but didn’t know a way out. The intense cravings kept calling.
“I’d be crying and cussing at people, ‘Why won’t you give me money? I’m homeless, and I need your help,’” Aiello stated during a recent interview. “I would stop traffic to ask them for pennies, dimes, quarters. At 5 p.m. every day, I would end up making $400-500 in a few hours. Some people would give me $100, $60, $40 because I would tell them I needed to get to a motel room to re-charge my wheelchair, or my clothes were full of urine and I had to do laundry, or I had to buy new clothes. Those were the nice people, and I was desperate.”
Aiello’s drug addiction eventually left her living in a cardboard box in bushes at several sites in Pawtucket, Providence and other locales, but all that changed about 30 months ago.
She remembers “The Switch” well: At 6:38 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 7, 2006, she was trying to sleep in a Carver Street apartment following a long night of smoking crack when she heard a tiny sparrow chirping at her bedroom window.
“She was singing away, and most drug addicts hate listening to the birds’ songs; they keep them awake,” she said. “I heard this bird’s message, and I heard God speak to me, that everything was going to be OK. The Lord said, ‘Cathy, just come home.’ I called a woman at my old church and cried. I told her I had been smoking crack and to please come and get me.
“The pastor at the Lincoln Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Dr. Samuel Bulgin, preached that day, and — when I was there — I heard God speak to me again,” she continued. “He told me it was good that I was in church, but there was a special place for people like me. It was a 12-step program for addicts, and he told me to go back to the meetings. I did, and really listened. I also got more involved, and that changed my whole life.”

***

Aiello — a 51-year-old Central Falls resident about to move with her third husband to a posh neighborhood in Johnston — has made quite a transformation since her rediscovery of God — and life. Clean, and a born-again Christian since, she not only works as an automobile buyer/seller, but — more importantly — has created an organization called “The Midnight Cry,” which offers blankets, food, coffee, health aids and prayers to those living on area streets, desperate people in dire need of a helping hand.
She admits she began this program in September, but it became truly official in October. She claimed, when she was snuggling into her own warm bed at night, her mind would drift to those outside, doing things she often had. Because she couldn’t sleep, she would travel out into the darkness and attempt to “spread the wealth,” help in any way she could while offering words of compassion via her relationship with Jesus Christ.
“About two years ago, I knew a gal — Joanna Sarafian — who was a heroin addict but got clean, and she had started a street ministry called, ‘In the Midnight Hour,’ and I really loved working in it,” Aiello said. “We used to go out and distribute things to people who needed them, and also talk to them about changing their lives. The problem was, she moved to Florida.
“To make a long story shorter, I called Joanna and said, ‘Who is taking over for you?’ and she told me, ‘No one,’” she added. “That’s when I got together with a woman named Denise Ferzan. We went out one rainy afternoon last September and passed out a letter of my personal testimony and apology to the people I had wronged during my addiction. I asked them to donate blankets, coats and other clothes to our cause, and we went and passed them out to those in need.”
How she came up with the organization’s name, which became official last Oct. 1, is another story altogether.
“It was after a song called ‘The Midnight Cry’ by Alvin Slaughter,” Aiello explained. “The words say, ‘I hear the rushing of angels’ wings, and it’s closer now than it’s ever been … I can almost hear the trumpet as Gabriel sounds the call, and, at the midnight cry, will be going home.’
“I also couldn’t sleep at night, after all I had been through,” she continued. “I’d be in my warm bed at home, knowing others were out there with no place to sleep, no shelter, no shower, nothing to eat. There would be many a night where I wasn’t with Denise or anyone, and the wind chill was six degrees. God would shake me awake, and say, ‘Get in your car; go help those who are uncomfortable.’ I’d drive down the road and He would present to me the person he wanted me to help that night.”
She has hundreds of memories of those she’s aided, but one remains stunningly vivid. In early November 2008, at about 11 p.m., she again couldn’t sleep, so jumped into her car and headed straight to the Dexter/Barton Street area.
“I saw a young woman out there prostituting, doing exactly what I used to do, and I called out to her,” Aiello offered. “I said, ‘Hi, Sweetie, are you hungry?’ She said, ‘No.’ I asked her if she wanted a coffee, and she said, ‘No.’ I then asked her if she wanted a warm blanket, and she nodded, ‘Yes.’ When I gave it to her, I stated, ‘Don’t tell me; let me guess. Your money is gone, your drugs are gone and it was time to leave the house where you were.’
“That’s when she started to cry,” she added. “I helped her to my car, and we talked. I bought her something to eat and a hot coffee, and that’s when she revealed to me she was eight months pregnant. I told her my story, and she listened. I told her how she now had to make choices for an unborn baby. She explained to me she was afraid, as she lost her apartment and her children to DCYF. She was scared that if anyone knew she was pregnant, she’d lose her unborn child.
“I just said, ‘Honey, if they’re seeing you’re trying to help yourself, and you’re making the right choices, you’ll be OK. Maybe you can go to a program called ‘Starbirth’ in Cranston. I told her she would need to ‘detox,’ so I took her to the hospital. I left her there to go home and get clean pajamas and clothes for her, went back and said I’d be there to support her every step of the way.
“Right after I left the hospital, the baby’s foot entered her birth canal. I went to see her the next morning, and she wasn’t there. I was frantic … About three days later, I received a call from her, and she told me — because of the breach — they had to a C-section. She also said that if God hadn’t sent me there that night, she and the baby would’ve died, so she thanked me.”