“I have cooked at Manci’s for six years and everyone calls me Mama. I grew up in Mobile and Prichard and went to Detroit every summer.

I have always cared for people and done anything I could to help them. When I was two years old, my mom was cooking and left the oven open while she ran into the front room. My little sister was trying to climb up the oven. I knew she wasn’t supposed to be there. I saw the pot of hot water wobbling, about to fall over. I put my body over my little sister to protect her. The pot fell on me and I was burned on over 60 percent of my body. I was in the hospital for a while and they had to do skin grafts.

I am raising six of my eight grandchildren and have about 25 others I help take care of. I love kids and I love people. I try to take care of everybody. I have never used government assistance. I can work, and God blesses me everyday. I say my prayers every morning when I get up and every night before I go to bed, thanking God for giving me another day in my right mind.

I am trying to buy a house. If that can happen, it will be my first house, and I will be so proud of that. But every house that would be good for me is off the market in two hours. Somebody else got it.

I am renting my house, but it’s barely livable. There are holes in the floor and hurricane damage that my landlord won’t fix. My grandchildren fall through the floor, but I do the best I can to fix that. My friends tell me not to pay rent, but at least living here is better than being homeless, so I make do. My bosses keep trying to help fix my house, but I am renting. I don’t want them to put their time and money into a place that belongs to someone else. They already put tires on my car even though I fought them about it. I am a giver and take care of everyone else. It is hard to receive help or accept anything from other people.

I have loved to cook since I was a little girl with an Easy Bake Oven and the Snoopy Sno Cone Maker. I have given those to my grandkids. My mom was a sloppy joe woman. My grandmother was the cook. She had dominoes players or church people over and cooked for them. I watched her make chocolate icing or banana pudding, sweet potato pie, collard greens, turkey necks and rice. I love to make all of that.

I worked at fast-food restaurants all my life: Taco Bell for 12 years, Burger King and Whataburger. Manci’s is the only nice restaurant I have worked at. I will have 30 orders going at a time. The kitchen is small, but I don’t stress. I just get the orders as fast as I can. This is my life. Sometimes I peek out and watch people eat what I just made. I like to see them enjoying our food.

Manci’s threw me a 50th birthday party in October. I’ve never had a birthday party. At my party, I found out I was one of the nominees for the best back-of-house employee for the state of Alabama. The award ceremony was in Birmingham last week. I have never won anything besides a trophy in track. They called my name as the winner, and I couldn’t believe it. I have never been to Birmingham, and my bosses paid for everything for my trip, including the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in.

I cook at Manci’s six days a week. We are closed on Mondays so I can take a day off. Since I work on Sundays and can’t go to church, I turn up the gospel music in the kitchen and sing. I can’t sing, but that doesn’t stop me. My favorite time of the year is when the Mardi Gras parades go by. I love to run out and catch stuffed animals and candy. Those are for me, not my grandkids.

All of my life felt like failure after failure. I am starting to see it differently now. God is so good.”

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