This spring the students in Anne Merkel's 7th and 8th grade writing class at Edgecomb's Center for Teaching and Learning went out into their communities to meet local working women and learn about their lives. They learned reportage, data-gathering, and interviewing techniques, and they experienced the process of making sense of data and crafting it as literature. Their goals were to learn how to conduct original, first-hand research and to make women's work and experiences more visible in their communities.

By Arden Carleton

A small line curls around the side of the little crimson restaurant: Red’s Eats. Debbie Gagnon’s beaming face peers through the front window. Her black hair is tucked into a maroon cap, as she cheerfully takes orders from the constant flow of customers.

Gagnon, co-owner of Red’s Eats, grew up in the food industry. At age 10 or 11, she was making coffee and sandwiches for her father’s catering company and working at a food cart in Richmond. She also helped him cater boat trips, weddings, and events for the American Legion and Wiscasset Alumni.

Gagnon and her father ran Red’s Eats side by side, and she continues to work the window since her father’s passing.

“It was like a part of him was here, and I wanted to keep that going,” Gagnon explains. She does the marketing, banking, ordering, scheduling and staff training. She also answers emails, runs ads and donations, and works the window seven days a week. If that’s not busy enough, when kids get out of school — about mid-June through Columbus Day —  the restaurant’s line trails all the way around the building, and sometimes stretches down the side of the road.

When asked who her role models were, Gagnon responds, “My dad was my best friend, my role model, and my hero.” She finds herself not only cooking and working like he did, but often quoting him, too. One of the most important pieces of advice she gives is, “I think you need to be a star in your own life. No matter how small the job, do it to the best of your ability.”

A visitor who gets the chance to step inside this magical restaurant will notice it is almost as red on the inside as it is outside. Everything is carefully organized into labeled boxes, for easy locating. Gagnon has four co-workers in the restaurant at a time; they work the fryer, stuff lobster rolls, wash trays, and check on customers as she works the window. Everything is done with precise and speedy movements, but there are plenty of laughs to go around, as well.

As she takes orders, Gagnon sparks conversations with each customer, and her animated attitude brings a smile to everyone’s faces. Along with the food, especially the famous lobster roll, it is Gagnon’s personality that draws in a constant flow of customers. As her father always said, “You can feed anybody once, but if you feed them twice, you’re doing something right.”