When I first arrived on campus, I found myself taken aback by how kind the kitchen and dining hall staff were. My surprise, I suppose, illustrated the level of detachment I was accustomed to in my everyday interactions.
But when your day-to-day life is suddenly confined to one small college campus, the amount of people you interact with shrinks significantly. I wasn’t used to seeing the same people everyday. At home, I would see different people on the bus, different bus drivers, different people at the coffee shop, different baristas every day. It was part of the hustle of city life. In Oberlin, I found myself wanting to get to know the workers I was interacting with, not only because I saw them everyday, but because they were so kind to me. I felt like they were a part of my life, and it bothered me that we didn’t know each other.
DeCafé, the market and to-go store on Oberlin’s campus, is one of the places I’ve found to be not only a source of food, but of community. For college students who have just left home, meals can be a sensitive time. Having a community, or a familiar face, when grabbing lunch or a snack can be incredibly comforting.
I spoke with Kathleen Hall, who works at DeCafé, about what that’s like. If you are a student, you have met Hall. She is usually wearing lipstick and a bright smile, and if you’re not spending your Flex Dollars, she’s letting you know.
Hall has been working for AVI Foodsystems for almost four years.
“I started out in the [Rathskeller] restaurant,” Hall said. “You know, cooking burgers, french fries, taking orders.”
Hall was working at the Rathskeller before Oberlin’s mobile ordering system was put in place. Hall explained that prior to mobile ordering, the Rathskeller was a lot more chaotic. There were seating booths in the space that is now blocked off and used for food storage.
“So we had the register; we had to take orders, and then they take the receipt and give it to somebody, and they get their order ready,” Hall said. “It was pretty hectic … ‘cause we’d have lines. So now, because of the app you can … preorder it, and then pick it up later,although it’s still sometimes minutes before the kids can get it. Like today, the count for the meals was 588 students from the Rathskeller.”
“But then I got transferred to the store and I thought it was gonna be easier, but you’ve been in there,” Hall said. “I always say it’s like the airport now. It is like the flights come in and we’re packed in there, and we still do stocking.”
DeCafé is frequented throughout the day, with students coming in and out between classes and during meal times. Depending on the time of day, lines can snake from the cash register, past the candy, and all along the canned goods.
“It’s one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had,” Hall said. “I [had] never worked in a restaurant before, so I didn’t know about, you know, customer service and filing orders, … let alone cooking.”
“I remember one time one of the kids came in — it was his first year too — and I don’t know, he must have overslept or something, but we closed the Rat at 10 o’clock for an hour, and so of course he got there after 10, and they were like, ‘Well, you know, we’re closed,’ and so I was standing there and I’m going, ‘Well, we got food here still, even though we’re closed,’” Hall said. “And so [I gave him some food], … and I’ve been friends with him since then. So when you ask about what brings up positivity, … I got boys and I would’ve wanted somebody to feed my son.”
Hall is one of 10 children and she has four children of her own. She says she treats everyone the way that she would want her family to be treated. The deep empathy and kindness Hall has for her community is reflected in the way that she treats Oberlin students.
“I had one girl come to my counter one day, and she just burst out crying,” Hall said. “I’m like, ‘Oh girl, no.’ So, you know, I pull her aside and we talk a little bit or whatever and stuff. Hug it out. … You know, people ain’t doing that no more.”
It might feel like a little thing, asking how someone’s day is going, saying thank you, but those little connections can make a new place feel more like home. We spoke for a while about what it’s like to leave home.
“I was like, ‘I’m outta here,’” Hall said when she spoke about her experience leaving home for the first time. “You ain’t had to kick me outta the nest. I kicked myself out of the nest. I knew that I couldn’t get what I wanted living in [Lorain County]. Where I grew up … is rural farmland, and there was nothing that I wanted to do in that area. … There’s a whole world out here to see and so … I ran outta here. … I went to Atlanta and then I moved to New Orleans. Only reason why I came back is because my parents started declining. So I’m glad I had that experience. But … I didn’t want to stay where I grew up at.”
“I saw a girl one day, she came to the counter, and, I guess because I got so many sisters, I said to her, ‘It was hard for you to leave home, wasn’t it?’ And so she was like, ‘Yeah,’ and I don’t know how I knew that, but … she seemed really timid or whatever. It’s not for everybody to leave home.”
It’s difficult to have this conversation with Hall just weeks after the death of College first-year Bella Ryan. The whole campus has been grappling with the loss of a community member, and if there is one thing that us students need to feel responsible for, it’s being kinder to one another. To be reminded so painfully that you never know what another person is going through, is to be prompted to consider the way that we treat each other, to reevaluate our interactions with strangers, and to appreciate more the people in our lives that share their kindness with us.
The students, the professors, kitchen staff, and every employee on campus feel it. It would be an injustice for us not to say it out loud. We need to look out for one another.
“ I’m mad about that,” Hall said. “You can’t save everybody, but at least they could say somebody tried. Or somebody reached out that day that I was feeling low, you know?”
Hall shares her kindness with the world, and in doing so, she looks out for Oberlin students.
“You know how some colleges have names?” Hall said. “This college is the party college. This college is, you know, the political college. This should be the college for young people that are kind. You guys are kind here.”
When we are thoughtful about our kindness, when we share it with everyone around us, we can take care of each other, and meet people like Kathleen Hall along the way.