Many Maritimers will sit down to celebrate Thanksgiving with their family and friends this weekend, pausing to reflect on all they have to be thankful for.

Liam Donnelly says he has plenty of reasons to feel grateful. He spends his days cooking food for those less fortunate, literally serving the tables he once sat at himself and giving back to the organization that helped him get back on his feet.

Donnelly is the breakfast program coordinator at the Brunswick Street Mission in Halifax, where they serve up to 70 people a day.

“It’s very important to me to be able to show other people, who are in the situation I was in, that that's not necessarily a dead end,” says Donnelly. “These are people who are in very desperate situations and they don't have the normal securities most of us take for granted and yet 90 to 95 per cent of people stop and say thank you on their way out the door.”

Donnelly was a client at the mission on and off over a number of years. His father died when he was young and he left home when he was 15 years old.

“I spent a lot of my life travelling around doing odd jobs and I developed a heroin addiction when I was younger,” says Donnelly.

Over time he was able to turn things around. He got clean and started working again.

However, last summer after some contract work ran out he ended back at the mission.

He volunteered to help in the kitchen and, last August, ended up being hired as the cook.

“Everyone needs a sense of purpose, whatever that purpose is and that's one of the things I'm able to give back,” says Donnelly.

Will Lank is on disability and unable to work. He says he feels welcome and wanted at the mission.

“A place to go, people to talk to, people who are in the same situation I'm in…we just all seem to fit together,” says Lank.

The breakfast program is just one of the services offered at the outreach ministry.

“We have a clothing bank which is hugely used, far beyond the local area, one of the last places where free clothing is available,” says Sandy Nicholas, Brunswick Street Mission’s executive director.

There's also a food bank and a program designed to help people manage their limited income.

The mission's annual breakfast fundraiser is being held at the World Trade and Convention centre October 15.

“(It’s) critical, critical, that fundraiser is going to give us the ability to keep helping these people through the year,” says Nicholas.

Donnelly will be at the event to share his story.

“Wherever people are at the moment, isn't necessarily where they're going to be stuck,” says Donnelly.

Lank says Donnelly leads by example and gives others hope.

“It just shows you that good things can happen and good things can happen to good people,” says Lank.

This Thanksgiving there's no shortage of reasons why Donnelly is giving thanks.

“The opportunity to work here, the opportunity to give back, my sobriety, the people who've helped me get from where I was, to where I am, there's thousands of things I'm grateful for,” says Donnelly.

Donnelly calls his work at the Brunswick Street Mission fulfilling and says he’s on a mission to give back.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Jackie Foster