My Story: Jennifer Mayfield

As told by Goodwill Industries of the Coastal Empire General Manager of Donated Goods Tekela Stilwell

Jennifer Mayfield is a smiling, cheerful young lady and considers herself to be a social butterfly.  She entered our program around 1997, and was hired as a production tech on January 15, 1998.  She has been employed with Goodwill Industries of the Coastal Empire for 14 years. 

Jennifer’s primary job is to hang clothes.  She meets and sometimes exceeds the production goal of hanging 100 pieces per hour. She was of the mindset that she could hang 10 Z-racks (100 pieces) of clothing per day, and that was all she was capable of doing.  She had convinced her parents that she was hanging at top rate speed and would never be able to hang more than 10 racks per day. 

But through support from a co-worker who wanted to see her be successful, Jennifer found that she could produce well beyond 100 pieces per hour.  Ms. Deborah Fort, Jenni’s co-worker, would work alongside Jenni and challenge her to see who could hang the most pieces, who could finish their Z-rack first. 

Ms. Fort made it fun for Jenni to improve her production rate.  And once Jenni discovered she could hang more than 10 Z-racks per day, she liked the challenge of trying to hang more today than she did yesterday.

Jennifer has great support from her parents, from her husband and from her co-workers, which is the reason she is successful.  There is nothing that warms my heart more, as Jenni’s former supervisor, than to walk into the Brunswick production department and hear Jenni get excited with a look of delight on her face.  It warms my heart to hear, “Ms. T, I love you and miss you,” as she puts her arms around me and gives me a heartfelt hug.

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