Matthew Burnette, Staff Writer

If you do the math at over 25 years at 180 school days a year at a school with roughly 500 students and a number of staff members, Cafeteria Manager Debra Hall has helped prepare and serve approximately 2.25 million meals during her tenure at Westwood Elementary in Manchester.

Now, due to snow days, student absences and the occasional half-days, that number may be debatable.

What isn’t debatable, though, is the hard work Hall has put in over that time. She came to Westwood after leaving a previous job and started praying for a new opportunity.

“The doors just opened up here for me and that’s been 25 years ago,” she explained. “I told the Lord I would stay here as long as He wanted me to, and I knew when He wanted me to go, I was gonna go, so I’m ready to go.”

Hall says that the physical aspects of the job started to take their toll on her, so she decided that it was time for her to retire after the current school year.

“There’s a lot of stress attached to it, and so the last five years have been a little bit rough,” she said. “It’s hard to keep employees, so it’s just been difficult. You just kind of know when it’s time to go, and I decided this was a good year. Plus, I have grandbabies to take care of.”

In addition to spending time with her family, Hall says she hopes to get to the Manchester Recreation Center to do some aerobics to regain some of the mobility she’s lost due to arthritis.

Though she does feel the effects of a 25-year career, she tells people that she never worked a day in her life when she was at Westwood Elementary.

“I just love it, and the kids are fabulous,” she said. “They love me, and I love them. We act silly and crazy but it’s okay. That’s what it’s all about.”

Hall, who usually learns every students name by the second week of school, says she always enjoyed it when seniors would come back to the school for the Senior Walk every spring and make a point of seeing her.

“They come and see you and they hug you and they say ‘Mrs. Deb I’m so glad that I got to see you. This was my favorite place to be when I was here,’” she recalled with a smile.

As the first staff members the students would see to start the day, Hall also noted that she and her fellow cafeteria staff got to be the ones to comfort them when things happen outside of school.

“If they’re crying, we try to find out why, and they’re very honest and they’ll tell you. They know that I love them, and I’ll give them a hug and tell them that it’s going to be okay,” explained Hall.

She also jokingly noted that the kids were also honest when they noted changes about her as well.

“When I started to get gray hair, they were like ‘Mrs. Deb, you’re getting gray hair.’ I said ‘Yes, I know’ and they said, ‘You’re getting old’ and I said, ‘Yes I am,’” she recalled.

Hall explained that she was given the spiritual gift of being able to be of service to others, which is why working in a school cafeteria was a natural fit for her.

“I just take care of people, and I take care of things if I see them and they need to be done,” she said. “Nobody usually has to ask me and sometimes I get in trouble for doing them but the majority of them, I don’t because if it needs to be done, I just kind of do it.”

Homemade cinnamon rolls are Hall’s “signature dish,” so to say and is one that she has made since early in her time at Westwood Elementary.

She recalled a moment with Ruth Davis, a former colleague who she calls a “hard task master.” Hall was preparing a batch of her famous cinnamon rolls and accidentally knocked the tray over onto the floor.

“I looked at her, I walked out the back door and I started to squall,” she remembered. “She gave me just a couple minutes, and then she came out there and said ‘It’s all good. It’s not a big deal. Come back in here, it’s okay.’”

Hall says they eventually formed a mutual love with each other. She also noted that everyone at Westwood is like a big family who she’s bonded with over the years, especially the cafeteria staff.

“I tell them all the time, I can’t be me without them,” she explained. “They will hold me up when I’m falling down. They will give me words of encouragement and let me rant and rave and act crazy, and then we’re all good. They have always been my right and left hand.”

“It’s been good.”