ALLENDALE, Mich., — Rain is the only thing that can keep Cora Martinie from hopping on her scooter to pay it forward. For the past few years, she’s been rolling to the Grand Coney restaurant to roll silverware, free of charge.
“She came in and saw that we were really busy and we were rolling silverware and she was just sitting there. She likes to come out,” explained Carli Kaptein, who works at the restaurant. “She lives by herself and she loves the company. And she asked to roll them for us and it just started from there.”
Now, Martinie makes the roughly two-mile journey on her scooter daily. She even whizzed over to help on Friday June 7th, her 94th birthday.
“I love my job,” Martinie told FOX 17 News. “Makes my day.”
Martinie’s friends and fellow Coney Island workers surprised her with a special cake to help her celebrate Friday. They say it was also a way to say “thank you” for her years of faithful service.
“She’s part of the coney. She’s part of the staff. Best person I’ve ever worked with,” said Kaptein. “This is just a small thing we could do for her. You know, a birthday. 94 is huge. It shows her that we really do appreciate and love her too.”
Martinie said she had no plans on “retiring” from rolling silverware anytime soon.
“This is my job as long as they’ll have me,” she said. “My folks taught me that if you do something, do it good or don’t do it all. So, I try to do it good. And they say I do it good so, I keep on doing it.”