Judy Cabana, 86, fills cups with ice and juice before lunch Wednesday at the Waterville Area Soup Kitchen. Cabana says volunteering at the soup kitchen provides a perspective of who’s in need in the community. Amy Calder/Morning Sentinel

Judy Cabana remembers entering the Waterville Area Soup Kitchen when it opened three years ago, asking to volunteer.

“They didn’t have a job for me so I said, ‘Can I come in anyway?’ ” she recalled.

She decided to visit the tables where guests were eating lunch and ask them how their day was going.

“One day I came in and I had all kinds of stickers with me, smiley face stickers, and I went around to everyone and said, ‘I see you don’t have a smile on your face. I’d like to see you smiling.’ So they’d give me a smile and I’d give them one of my stickers and then they really gave me a smile. It did make me feel good.”

Cabana, 86, was behind the breakfast bar late Wednesday morning at the 38 College Ave. soup kitchen, scooping ice cubes into paper cups and filling them with water and lemonade, as well as orange tangerine, grape and apple juices.

“Right now, we’re getting ready for the lunch line,” she said.

A few dozen people had filtered into the dining room, which was warm and steamy and smelled of meatloaf. Cabana, wearing a black baseball cap and apron bearing the soup kitchen logo, greeted guests and served them drinks, including tea or coffee.

“I enjoy it very much,” she said of her work. “It gives you a different perspective of who’s in need.”

I had stopped there not knowing I would run into Cabana, whom I hadn’t seen in a while since her husband, Lee Cabana, passed in 2017. For years he was the chairman of the Waterville Board of Education, which I covered as part of my beat, and Judy attended every meeting. Lee was a retired high school teacher; she was a retired education technician and had worked for years at the then-Thayer Hospital as a medical technologist. She also worked at a doctor’s office.

We often sat near each other during those school board meetings and would chat about this and that, discovering we had a birth date in common. The Cabanas had three boys, and she loved to talk about them and her grandchildren.

She is the type of person who loves to do for others, but in an unassuming way. In the past, she volunteered at a school library and was a Cub Scout leader, and now volunteers on a committee for Kennebec Retired Educators Association and is a lector and eucharistic minister at her church, where she serves on the cemetery committee. She also gives rides to a friend who doesn’t drive anymore.

Cabana fits right in at the soup kitchen, where she volunteers every Wednesday and engages with guests. She remembered one man who always sat alone, never smiled and never talked to anyone. She persisted in trying to get him to smile and finally, he did, and began talking to her, she said. When she told Carla Caron, who runs the soup kitchen, about it, Caron told her it is because he now trusted her.

“A lot of them do come and talk to me, and they tell me their story,” Cabana said.

The soup kitchen serves between 300 and 400 meals a day, including takeout, and it operates on an annual budget of $180,000 Caron said. While about 100 people volunteer, more are always needed, she said. She  invites those interested to stop in from 9-11 a.m. Tuesday through Friday to talk to her.

“It’s always nice to have an extra set of hands,” she said.

Caron described Cabana as a dedicated, loyal volunteer.

“She is such an amazing human being,” Caron said. “She has been with us since we opened.”

Cabana didn’t hesitate when I asked what she has learned during her time there.

“The biggest thing is not to be judgmental,” she said. “They all have their problems, and everyone is an individual and one person is as good as another. It’s important to me because these people need somebody that they can trust, and they just need companionship and understanding about the position they are in,” she said. “They need compassion.”

Amy Calder has been a Morning Sentinel reporter 37 years. Her columns appear here Saturdays. She is the author of the book, “Comfort is an Old Barn,” a collection of her curated columns, published in 2023 by Islandport Press. She may be reached at acalder@centralmaine.com. For previous Reporting Aside columns, go to centralmaine.com