YOUR STORY MATTERS HERE: Debbie Mariotti

By Tim Wesley

After nearly 40 years of attending Dutilh, Debbie Mariotti still has a fire in her belly for her church. And it all started with, well, a fire.

 A McKeesport native, Debbie and her husband, Vince, moved to Cranberry Township in November 1985. Seeking a new church, she noticed a small one alongside Route 19.

“I have an affinity for things that are old and historic, so it intrigued me to go to a little white church,” she says.

They began attending that church – Dutilh – at Christmastime and continued going in the new year. Then on Feb. 10, an arsonist set fire to the church, and it burned to the ground.

“We were only in the church a handful of times before the fire,” Debbie says. “The church was one of the oldest in the area, so it was big news at the time.”

The Dutilh congregation continued to meet in the ballroom of a nearby hotel until a new church could be constructed on the existing site. Groundbreaking ceremonies were held about six months after the fire, and the new church opened two years later, in 1988.

Although it’s no longer a little white church, Debbie has remained a faithful fan and supporter.

“I love Pastor Tom’s [Parkinson’s] sermons because they’re always Bible-based, and he does such an excellent job of relating them to everyday life,” she says. “Our music ministry is just phenomenal, and the rest of the staff is so supportive.”

Dutilh also fuels Debbie’s burning desire to serve. Currently, she leads the Food Drive, through which members of the congregation provide food staples, which are then donated to two local elementary schools for families in need.

Debbie’s litany of service at Dutilh began as she and Vince were raising their three daughters (Michelle, now 43; Laura, 36; and Kristin, 33). As director of Vacation Bible School for five years beginning in the late 1980s, she presided over the annual pilgrimage of 200-some youngsters through the classrooms and hallways of the church.

“At the time, we just had the education wing indoors and some tents outside, so we had to pray for good weather,” she says. “We had kids everywhere. And there was no internet or computers, so we would go to the Christian bookstores to look for programs and information. We had various committees and a lot of meetings, and we all spent a lot of time at the church getting everything organized.”

She later served with Children’s Church on Sunday mornings, as a greeter and usher, as a member of the church’s 150th anniversary committee, and as a cook for Victims Outreach Intervention Center (VOICe) meals.

While participating in organized ministries, Debbie has also responded to spur-of-the-moment needs over the years, especially when they involve someone who appears to be less fortunate. As her guiding light, she points to Jesus’s teachings in Matthew 25:35-40, summarized by “… whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

“Those verses are on my heart all the time,” she says. “When I’m walking past someone looking for money or food, I hear a tiny voice in my head, and I think, ‘I know You want me to stop and talk to them,’ so I do. Last summer we were walking to a Pirates game and along the way, there seemed to be more of these folks than normal. We walked by one young woman sitting on the ground who looked to be in her thirties. I went back to talk to her, and she started to cry. Her name was Mary, and I prayed with her and gave her a few bucks. She thanked me and said, ‘You’re the first person who saw me.’ It just broke my heart.

“For me, I don’t care whether some of these people are here legally or illegally; they are people and they have a need. Should they come legally, yes, but what circumstances could people possibly be in that they are so desperate to leave their home and come to another country to feel safe? They don’t speak the language, yet they come here to escape some sort of persecution or war or whatever in their home country. I can’t fathom that, so I feel like I need to help them if I can. We’re supposed to love others as God loves us.”

With that dedication to service driving her personal life, it’s no surprise that Debbie’s career took her in that direction, too. From 1997-2020, she worked at the former Butler Auto Auction, now Manheim Pittsburgh, along Route 19 in Cranberry Township. She handled a variety of duties but says customer service specialist was her favorite.

“My job was to keep the customers, who were all car dealers, as happy as possible, within our parameters,” Debbie says. “They would want things their way and that didn’t always work for us, so I’d try to come up with solutions that were acceptable. Compromise was my big thing. The solution may not be what they have in mind, but we had to find a place in the middle, and I spent my days constantly doing that. You had to be on your game all the time because you never knew what was going to happen. It was sometimes stressful and sometimes entertaining.”

There was, for example, the customer who always argued that certain charges should be removed from his invoice because, he said, those services had not actually been provided. After being handed a revised invoice, he’d then take it to another customer service specialist and try to make the same case again.

“Eventually we figured it out and would just let each other know that he was making the rounds,” Debbie says.

She dealt occasionally with angry customers, including one who stood about 6-foot-4 and weighed perhaps 300 pounds.

“He got in my face and was screaming at me because he said we didn’t inspect his cars,” she says. “He walked away then came back and tried to get in my face again. Now, I’m pretty easygoing, but don’t abuse me. I said, ‘If you want my help, don’t scream at me.’ I think he was surprised I stood up to him, so he turned and walked away. I might be tiny but I’m not going be intimidated. If you want me to help you, I’ll move Heaven and Earth but don’t treat me like that. I always figured you could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

During the final years of her career, she says a corporate focus on increasing profits presented some challenges.

“I was there when it was an independent auction, but then we got bought and became part of a larger network,” she says. “Dealing with corporate was frustrating at times. The reason why certain customers came to us was because of how we did things. We took care of the customers but having more corporate involvement the last few years was sometimes a hurdle.”

Even so, she enjoyed the company’s continued focus on service and volunteering, and she raised her hand frequently to pitch in.

“I love to serve,” she says. “Our company became really big on volunteer work, cleaning roads, cleaning a stream, weeding around our buildings. I enjoyed working with people on projects and still do; it’s in my DNA, to help people.”

That includes, of course, helping her family.

Debbie and Vince, a retired school psychologist, have three grandchildren – Leah (10 years old), Gilbert (4), and Eleanor (15 months) – and they babysit them twice a week. It’s a labor of love, but it can still be challenging.

“Eleanor has taken it to the next level,” Debbie says, with a laugh. “That child is into everything. She’s not walking yet, but she’s getting there.”

In her spare time, Debbie looks for creative outlets such as making crafts and painting, and she enjoys reading a variety of genres and sharing books with others.

“I’ll do anything that’s creative,” she says. “Our grandkids have an Advent calendar that I painted, with a little box and drawers for stuff each day. When they were kids, I painted characters on their bedroom walls. And now our grandkids all have paintings I did. It’s just another way I show love, with something I made, and put some thought and care into.”

Loving. Caring. Serving.

Flames that will always burn brightly for Debbie Mariotti.

-Published May 3, 2023