THE HEAVY LIFTERS - Stanstead College

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Stanstead Staff: Working Above and Beyond If you’re going to do laundry for close to 200 kids, you need to have a system. That means, for example, making sure labels are on every piece of clothing – except socks. Socks get thrown into a mesh bag with the students name on it. “Can you imagine going through a load and checking every sock for nametags?” says Alta Sheldon, head of housekeeping at Stanstead College. Alta has worked 27 of her 32 years here in the laundry where she and the rest of the staff process about 28 loads a day. “They keep us busy here,” she says. If a label is missing from a piece of dirty clothing that comes in, it gets passed on to Dian Middleton who is pretty handy with a label and a sewing machine. She also sews torn uniforms, napkins for the kitchen, letters on sports uniforms, plus she cleans the Davis Annex, the Advancement Office and the Health Centre. “I like it,” she says. “It keeps me busy. There’s always something to be done somewhere, some little extra.” Doing that “little extra” and doing it with pride makes Stanstead’s team of non-faculty employees so invaluable. They quite simply keep the school running. “The great thing is these are not people who work from 8 to 4,” says Headmaster Michael Wolfe, who hosts monthly coffee breaks in his home for the 16 maintenance, housecleaning and driving staff. “They go above and beyond. They recognize that in a boarding school like ours, they often have to work after hours, late at night. And there’s never hesitation on their part. They’re a part of the family.” It’s not just keeping things clean and tidy for the students. It’s taking care of the vast grounds and the buildings, some of which are closing in on a century of use. “The big fear is Colby,” says Mike Séguin, head of maintenance and supervisor of five full-time and one part-time worker. “If a pipe breaks, the damage goes down a few floors. And all the pipes in there are old and hidden.” And then there’s the old boiler system with its underground pipes running between buildings. “Every year in the fall, when we turn on the heat, we cross our fingers that there are no underground breaks. This year we weren’t so lucky,” says Séguin. Séguin manages a daily list of scheduled tasks plus requests that come in from all corners of the school. Then there’s the unforeseen stuff, like the snowstorms that kept the ploughs rolling and the shovels flying this past winter. It’s actually the unpredictable nature of the job that appeals to Kevin Lafond, who began working at the College last summer. He’d worked several years in front of a computer at a local granite shop and found himself looking out the window and wishing Housekeeping
T he Maintenance “to-do” list for Monday, January 28 - Put away stuff for the lip synch contest and set up for assembly - Bring horse sleigh back to Hatley - Go around buildings and collect all our shovels - Help electrician install new switch for large circulator motor - Clean up around bonfire and put park benches back in barn - Need photocopy paper - Boxes for maintenance - Install new oven element in food warmer - Leaking under sink in girls changing room - Install all new window stoppers in the new windows - Drill holes in teachers desk for computer wires - Garbage run - Bags to go to the laundry - Lights burnt - Replace circulator under the hot water tank - Switch back the original slide bolt - Bring two bags of clean laundry to Health Centre - Change burnt light ballast - Scrape off the snow - Replace broken light switch he was outside. “One of the things I like about working here is there’s something different every day,” he says. Besides working in maintenance, Kevin also drives students to games, airports, appointments, wherever they need to go. He enjoys getting to know the students and being associated with the school. Early in this year’s hockey season, for example, he drove the senior boys to Lake Placid. When the team stopped at a restaurant, an older woman noticed that the crest on Kevin’s jacket matched the one on the boys’ blazers. She walked over. “She asked where we were from and I told her we were from a boarding school in Canada called Stanstead College,” Kevin recalls. “She said, ‘My husband and I can’t get over how polite your boys are.’ It makes you feel good when the students can go out like that and be so respectful.” Maida Benoit has been cleaning Davis House for nine years. She’s seen a lot of boys come and go. “Too many,” she says. “And I mean that in a good way. You get friendly with them and then they leave. But I’m still in contact with a lot of them.” Drivers When you’re taking care of the living quarters for teenagers, in some ways you get to know them better than anyone else. “We see a lot of things even the teachers don’t see,” says Maida. “We’ve found a few ‘special items’ under mattresses. A n d garbage – they have that special 17 hiding place for garbage.” Lucie Roy experiences the daily rush of students behind the counter at the Tuck Shop, which she has managed for the past seven years. “You can’t get any better,” she says of working at Stanstead College. “We’re well respected and appreciated. You can go into the office and state your opinion and you’re listened to. If you want to say something, you can say it. It’s like a family.” All in all, there’s a strong sense that everyone – the administrators, the teachers and caretakers – are working together in mutual respect for a common cause: the students. As 13-year housecleaning veteran Elizabeth Flanders says, “We need each other.” Got a whole lot of buns Dining hall staff are employed by Aramark Canada, which holds the contract for food services for the school. Every day, the cooks, servers, dishwashers rush to serve three full meals to close to 300 people. It takes a lot of coordination and a lot of food. Below is Food Services director Yves Lavoie’s rough estimate of a school-year’s worth of various food items prepared and served at LeBaron Dining Hall: - Hamburger: 3,000 kg - Potatoes: 6,000 kg - Carrots: 1,400 kg - Eggs: 3,600 dozen - Breads & buns: 39,200 units - Apples: 25,000 units - Tomatoes: 700 kg - Bananas: 2,900 kg - Napkins: 280,000 units Maintenance
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THE HEAVY LIFTERS - Stanstead College

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