The refrigerator was barren. The living room only had a leftover couch. They kids slept on donated beds.
That was home for Cate Fierro and her three daughters after a divorce and bankruptcy forced them from their four-bedroom home on five acres in Big Lake and into the Maple Grove townhouse they were squatting in. “I was hopeless, depressed,” Fierro says. “I was very scared, but miracles kept happening.”
Since the difficult times began in 2006, Fierro set out to make it as a singer in the Twin Cities music scene. She did it. This year, she played more than 150 shows around the metro area, and she had a song on a Christmas CD sold in Target stores over the holidays.
“Seeing that she is a single woman with three kids and knowing where she has come from and where she is going is a testament to how strong she is,” says Mick Sterling, the front man of The Irresistibles, one of the many bands in which Fierro sings.
Taking a Helping Hand
Fierro, 40, owned a hair salon in Brooklyn Park, but sold the business to stay home and raise her three daughters under the age of 8. Her husband worked to support the family, but other financial hardships—which Fierro keeps private—played a part in ending their 14-year marriage.
The divorce left Fierro jobless when she sold her business and she and her daughters homeless, but Fierro’s pride kept her from accepting charity.
Fellow members with the religious group New Life Community in Maple Grove heard about the difficult times Fierro and her daughters were enduring. They chipped in help. Cathy and Ray Ahlgren gave the girls a low-rent place to stay in the townhouse they had up for sale. Lynette Rohde encouraged her to fill that empty refrigerator with the help of CROSS (Christians Reaching Out in Social Service) Food Shelf in Rogers.
Finally putting her pride aside, Fierro learned that it’s OK to accept help. They stayed in the townhouse for about eight months and had plenty to eat. “It doesn’t matter how people end up, how they got there,” Fierro says. “If the bottom falls out, if people need help, they need help.”
Fierro described her depths as “depressing,” but CROSS coordinator Char Lake says Fierro showed “inspiring faith.” “Her attitude is that she is going to make it,” Lake says. “I don’t think ‘self pity’ is in her vocabulary.”
With Lake’s voucher and assistance, Fierro and her three daughters—Maria, Ellie and Téa—were able to get approved for housing despite the financing limitations of Fierro’s bankruptcy. “They are really respectful of you,” Fierro says of the staff at CROSS. “No one is looking down on you. That’s important because you have this sense of hopelessness, and people are scared.”
To fend off trepidation, Fierro says CROSS gives “with a smile, tenderness. They have complete compassion.”
Her Big Break
Fierro always had an affinity for singing, but she never pursued it. With her marriage crumbling, she decided to sing in a church concert in November 2006. She followed it with one performance at a coffee shop. In January 2007, she would embellish on those performances in a conversation with Mick Sterling, a Minnesota Music Award winner and member of the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame.
Fierro approached Sterling after a performance of his in January 2007. What she said next took some gall. “I introduced myself and said, ‘You need a back-up vocalist and it’s me,” Fierro says, laughing. “He has probably heard that 500 times.”
Sterling asked Fierro about what singing she had done. “I lied,” Fierro says. “I said I sing here and there. ... I was so unbelievably nervous. This is the man that has shaped the face of the Twin Cities music scene.”
Sterling gave her a chance. After hearing a performance she recorded, he asked her to learn some songs and sit in with him at his show the following Saturday. “I was so nervous,” Fierro recalls. “I sounded so bad. I screwed up the lyrics and I was sweating. … I completely botched it.”
She thought it was over, but Sterling gave her another chance. “I have no idea what happened,” she says. “He said, ‘I think you have potential. Put a band together and if I like your sound, I will book you gigs.’”
Fierro has now found out, that’s just who Mick Sterling is. “He does that. He helps people,” she says. “He’s a coach.”
The coach apparently didn’t think Fierro botched the audition with his band. “She had this love for performing and it showed,” Sterling says. “People are attracted to that, and she is a very strong singer.”
He booked her first gig at the former Copper Bleu restaurant in Lakeville. Sterling and the restaurant owners showed up to see the show. The owners liked her, giving her another gig at the Champps they owned in Maple Grove. “From there, it snowballed,” she says. “Things kept coming to me, and it wasn’t just through Mick anymore. It was me. It felt good.”
Now, Fierro sings with Gary D. and The Fabulous Armadillos, Billy Scherer and The Soul Providers and Lizzy Rain, among others. She sang on the “Home for the Holidays: A Minnesota Christmas” album. When she saw it on the Target shelf, she shook her head. “Sometimes, I can’t believe this is my life,” Fierro says. “I’m so blessed.”
Time to Give Back
One annual show stands out among Fierro’s plethora of performances: the Heart in Motion Benefit her band puts on to raise money for those that helped her at CROSS. In three years, she has raised about $18,000, including $8,000 during the first show in 2008. “We did that on one night!” she says of the show in Osseo. “It was incomprehensible. Only 150 people were there. I couldn’t believe that we raised that much.”
Fierro’s giving has extended to a one-day food drive that garnered 500 pounds of food from friends and family on a Saturday in 2008, and distributed 200 bag lunches for homeless people in Minneapolis on another one-day give-a-thon.
Fierro says her faith in God led her to embark on these philanthropic missions. “People were sitting there, so desolate,” Fierro says about the bag lunch task. “We came in and showed them some light.”
Fierro’s faith has deepened the belief of Lake and the staff at CROSS. “She has paid us back over and over,” Lake says. “It’s uplifting to be around her. She supports us and makes believers out of us.”
To make ends meet, Fierro has served in restaurants and is trying to start her own marketing business, but sometimes, she still needs food from CROSS. When she and her children go to the food shelf, the girls inquire about their purpose. “The girls will say, ‘Mom, are we giving or getting today?’” Fierro says. “They aren’t completely unaware of where we have come from.”
&
Empty Bowls
What: A fundraiser for the CROSS food shelf in Rogers
Where: Osseo High School cafeteria
When: From 3 to 7 p.m. March 24
Events: A free, public meal of soup and bread will be served. With a small donation, the bowls made by students, artists and community members will be given away.
Why: The money will help purchase food for the area’s needy families.
Information: Call 763.370.2470
