MONTMARTRE, Sask. — When you walk in the door, the mouth-watering aroma of fresh buns envelopes the senses.
In the kitchen, it quickly becomes evident that the homey smell is from so much more than fresh bread — it’s from pizza buns, cinnamon buns, pulled pork, chili, chocolate-chip cookies and peanut butter squares.
Charlotte Shewchuk is responsible for all these home-cooking smells.
But she’s not in her home.
She’s at the Montmartre School where she serves hot lunches every second day and strolls through the school with a snack-heaped cart at recess.
“When I first started, we had about 13 snacks and 23 lunches, but now we have about 200 snacks and 88 lunches,” says Shewchuk, remembering back three years to when she began in her role as nutrition co-ordinator for the Prairie Valley School Division.
With a student population of about 240 at Montmarte School, most kindergarten to Grade 12 students depend on Shewchuk on the Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays that she cooks for them.
Principal Janelle Forsyth says Shewchuk’s presence in the school has become about so much more than hot lunches.
“Charlotte is the heart of the school,” says Forsyth, tearing up as she speaks. “The kids just love her because she’s kind and compassionate and caring and the kids know she’d never let them go hungry.”
As the snack cart leaves the high-school end destined for the middle-years wing, Shewchuk is upset to see that there are only a handful of long johns remaining for the middle-years students, and the cart has not even reached the elementary students yet.
“This is heartbreaking,” she mutters out loud. “I just can’t possibly make enough because I started with 60 of them this morning, and now look, the little guys won’t even get a crack at them.”
As much as Shewchuk tries to keep up with the demand, she cannot. Despite starting her day as early as 5 a.m., her $1 goods fly off the snack cart so fast that she almost always runs out.
Her garlic cheese buns are the most popular, so she often makes extras to store in an upright freezer, which is available to high school students to help themselves on the honour system when she is not there.
Shewchuk works especially hard at exam time making hot breakfasts every morning during finals.
“I started that when I first came and it seems to help them with writing exams,” says Shewchuk. “They can’t wait to get here to eat a hot breakfast, or have a muffin, and most of them say they wish they had exams all year.”
Shewchuk, who previously operated a restaurant in a nearby town, knows many of the students by name and she also keeps a mental diary of their preferences.
“If they don’t like something, I don’t put it in,” says the motherly cook. “For example, Jiri will not eat ham and I know that so I will make something special for him.”
Her menu runs the gamut from lasagna to chicken alfredo to meatballs and gravy, in addition to the baked goods.
For the purposes of time management, she has tried pre-made items like hamburgers and meatballs in the past.
“I tried it, but it’s not who I am. Some of the kids didn’t notice a difference, but I did,” says Shewchuk.
So, she continues to come into the school early and prepare every single snack and meal from scratch.
“The hardest part is trying to find enough time to do everything in the day. I never seem to get ahead,” she says, adding that the 74 cheese buns she made this morning will be gone by lunch.
However, she wouldn’t change a thing about the special role she has come to play in the Montmartre School.
“It’s not a job or the money, because I don’t make that much. It’s just about the appreciation I get from the kids.”
