Grill project dedicated to autistic kids completed

Gary Liddle, the other half of Liddle Mesa Enterprises, poses with the barbecue grill he and Arnold Mesa installed at the Kilili Pavilion. (Contributed Photo)

Do you enjoy the smell of chicken, pork-ribs, steak, burgers, hotdogs, and other such things grilling on the barbecue? If you love to barbecue or grill—in a nutshell, the difference is temperature and time—then you’ll want to know that there is a barbecue pit along Beach Road that now has a commercial-grade grill. It’s at the Kilili pavilion

Who made this happen? Gary Liddle and Arnold Mesa of Liddle Mesa Enterprises. They wanted not only to invest their money in a project, but their time as well. And, so, along with the help of Eli Cabrera and George The Paluan, a genius fabricator and welder, and both with the Division of Parks and Recreation, this grill was provided for use by the Saipan community and guests.

Why did they choose this project? When Liddle arrived on island seven years ago, he was driven along Beach Road from Pacific Islands Club to Garapan.

On both sides of the road, every sports facility was occupied from PIC’s tennis courts, to San Antonio’s basketball courts, to all the facilities at the Oleai Sports Complex. On the west side of the road, every pavilion was crammed with friends and families visiting, playing, and barbecuing. It was heart-warming.

During the intervening years, they became more aware of the limitations of barbecue pits without grills. If you wanted to grill, you had to bring your own. And tourists were certainly left out of the picture. And so the seeds of this small project began to grow, designs were made, materials bought, fashioned to shape, then fabricated. As followers of Christ, these two men wanted to quietly find projects that would serve others.

They would like to dedicate this grill to Liddle’s severely autistic, severely mentally disabled daughter, Katie, and to all the autistic children and their parents and families throughout the CNMI. They hope you will enjoy using this grill and will take care of it, the pavilion, and the surrounding area and note that the last step to grilling or barbecuing is cleaning the grill, readying it for the next user. You have their thanks.

And maybe this will inspire other companies and individuals to continue to add grills to our other barbecue pits around Saipan, Rota, and Tinian.

Liddle and Mesa even made a shout out to Best Sunshine International, Ltd. chief executive officer Mark Brown about donating resources and donate a day of his time to help with the project.

And if you have or know where there’s a sheet of stainless steel (minimum of 36” by 72”), these two men would like to complete their project by replacing the rotted sheet metal barbecue hood with one of stainless steel. Also, if you have any suggestions for improving the design of the grill, please let Liddle know at liddlega@yahoo.com.