Every lunch period, five days a week, students crowd the cookie corner in search of a sweet treat. Behind the counter, Mrs. Donna Smith has become a familiar face to generations of North Penn students, even if many never knew her name. While many recognize her face, few know the woman who wakes up at 4 a.m. to help keep the cafeteria running.<\/p>\n
This June, following 35 years in the North Penn school district, Smith will serve her last cookie and say her last goodbye to the cafeteria.<\/p>\n
The 1971 Souderton High School graduate spent her first five years out of high school doing data processing for American Olean Tile close to home in Lansdale, before she transitioned from that role to a stay at home mom doing the work of raising her first of four children. She would continue in that role until her youngest started first grade.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen my youngest started first grade, I thought \u2018I need to do something,\u2019 so I volunteered in the library at Oak Park, and then I thought, \u2018gosh, I should be doing something I get paid for,\u201d Smith shared with a laugh. \u201cOver the summer, I applied with food service, and I got a phone call right away. They said, \u2018do you want to go to the high school?\u2019 I said, \u2018Oh, I think that’s the place I didn’t wanna go.\u2019 They said, \u2018well, why don’t you just try it? If you don’t like it, we’ll switch you.\u2019 Well, I liked it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith started that year, in September of 1991 as a cafeteria sub of sorts, working at schools across the district when she was needed. Following that year, she became a permanent fixture of first floor B-Pod.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have done every job in the kitchen except a cook and a boss. I’ve been in the dish room, I’ve been in the pots and pans sink, I served, I sliced. Everything,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIn the last couple years, I\u2019ve cashiered at the cookie corner, and I love it in there because the kids are all hungry, so they’re nice to you because you’re giving them the food.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her morning begins much before any of her customers though, waking at 4 and coming in at 6 in order to get the cafeteria ready for the bustle of everyday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI come in and I set up the lines for breakfast and then I’m just out there to refill and keep watch, then I restock for the next morning,\u201d Smith said. \u201cAfter that I come back to the cookie corner, and I start bagging up the cookies, which sometimes is about 600 of them and just get the cookie corner ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leaving any job is hard, but for Smith, the people are what is going to sting the most.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just enjoy the kids, most of them are really nice and polite. [Going to miss] the kids and some coworkers too. I won’t miss getting up at 4 o’clock in the morning,\u201d Smith laughed.<\/p>\n
No more early morning wake up call isn’t the only thing calling Smith\u2019s name, as she looks forward to having the time to herself. This Memorial Day weekend, her family is going to a campground near Knoebels that has been a yearly trip for them for almost 50 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI enjoy being outside, gardening, camping. Flower beds, I love flowers. I could never get enough flowers. Don’t let me in a greenhouse,\u201d Smith chuckled. \u201cI love carnations, but to plant, begonias, impatiens, vincas, any annuals. I just like something that flowers all summer long.\u201d
\n\u201cI like sewing. I’m trying to learn quilting. My mother was a big quilter, but unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to learn while she was still alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
While she only gets a few seconds with each kid, she tries to make each one a positive experience.<\/p>\n
I don’t get a whole lot of time with each kid so I try to just say a little something to them, just like \u2018how’s your day going?\u2019 I like to treat people the way I want to be treated. Don’t treat people rude if that’s not the way you want to be treated,\u201d Smith shared.<\/p>\n
Surrounded by cookies all day, anyone would become quite the connoisseur.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe used to have oatmeal raisin cookies, which we don’t have anymore, and that was my favorite, and we used to have what they called a whoopee cookie. It was two cookies with cream in the middle. That, with two oatmeal raisin cookies, was, like, I could’ve ate a whole bunch of them,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
For 35 years, Mrs. Donna Smith proved that a job in the cafeteria is as much about connection as it is about serving food. To the thousands of hungry students who passed through her line, she was the positive experience we all need in the middle of a school day.<\/p>\n
In June, the early alarms will finally stop, the cookie corner will change hands, and Mrs. Smith will get her well-deserved summer that lasts all year long. North Penn might not serve her favorite oatmeal raisin or whoopee cookies anymore, but for over three decades, Mrs. Donna Smith served up something much better: A daily reminder to treat people exactly how you want to be treated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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