BELLINGHAM, Mass. — For a dozen Cumberland Farms workers, it was the most profitable store meeting they ever attended.
Not only did each employee at the Pulaski Boulevard location walk away with $300 cash, they also learned the true value of cheerful customer service during the pandemic.
“We definitely don’t get a lot of this every day,” said Cumberland Farms worker Zachary Rivera. “This gift is wonderful. We have a fantastic team here. I love everybody I work with. I love all the customers who come in.”
Employee D’Ondre Motley planned to use part of the money to take his daughter out for her birthday.
“This is definitely a blessing,” he said. “We’ve been on the front line all year. From the time we come in to the time we leave we try our best to make everyone happy. And we make sure we show up every day.”
That’s exactly what customer Lois Olivo noticed this past year.
“Every day during this pandemic, every one of these young people showed up,” she said. “And they didn’t just show up -- they made each and every one of us feel very, very special to them.”
Olivo is not only a regular morning coffee customer at the Pulaski Boulevard Cumberland Farms, she runs the Jacqueline Olivo Foundation, named after her daughter, who died suddenly about seven years ago.
“And the pain is as raw as it was that first day, and it will always be,” Olivo said. “There is no such thing as closure.”
But there is such a thing as homelessness -- something Jacqueline was acutely aware of and even experienced at times.
“So Jacqueline was the type of person that if we were walking up the street and there was a homeless person sitting on the ground, she would start reaching in her pockets,” Lois said -- and that would be the case even if Jacqueline’s pockets were nearly empty.
The foundation’s focus remains on helping the homeless by providing warm clothing and toiletries to those on the street.
“But I knew once the pandemic hit that I could go outside the boundaries a little bit,” Olivo said.
The first example of that came last spring. As the first wave of the pandemic was cresting in the Northeast, and unemployment numbers soared, Olivo distributed grocery gift cards outside Market Basket in Bellingham.
Tuesday, as the employees gathered outside the Cumberland Farms, ostensibly for that ‘store meeting,’ Lois distributed foil-wrapped gift boxes.
On a count of three, they were opened -- and there was shock and disbelief as three hundred-dollar bills popped from each package.
Store Manager Lucinda Parrella, who helped Lois pull off the surprise, said this was a deserving group of workers.
“I would not trade any of them for nothing,” Parrella said. “We have our good days, we have our bad days. But at the end of the day they’re dedicated, they’re loyal to Cumberland Farms. And they’ve been here every day.”
Lois told the workers she wanted to show her appreciation because they pretty much make her day.
Each morning when she rises, Lois explained, she sees a picture of Jacqueline. And still, nearly seven years later, it makes her cry. But then she thinks about coming down to Cumberland Farms and getting coffee and feels better, knowing the workers she’ll run into are kind and friendly to everyone -- just as she remembers Jacqueline had been.
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March 31, 2021 at 07:13AM
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