Although many Capreol residents are already aware of Carole Mayhew’s status as a community champion, it was formalized on Saturday when she received an award to that effect.
During Capreol Days festivities in downtown Capreol, organizing committee members dragged her away from M&R Grill long enough to give her a Community Champion Award.
“Carole Mayhew has been a wonderful staple of our community for so many decades,” Ward 7 Coun. Natalie Labbée said, introducing the inaugural recipient.
“She’s been a wonderful community champion for so long, she sponsors and supports so many things for Capreol, her and her husband (Moe).”
Fellow organizing committee member Barbara Boucher shared this sentiment in conversation with Sudbury.com.
“Everything I hear about Carole is amazing,” Boucher said, “Her dedication to Capreol as a resident and a great restaurant owner has made everyone want to go there.”
“She’s truly a community champion,” Labbée said, calling M&R Grill, which Mayhew owns, a “focal point of the community.”
“It’s a meeting space outside of those franchises,” she said. “After church it’s packed, everyone comes out for breakfast.”
Mayhew is also credited with organizing and sponsoring various activities in Capreol.
During brief and emotional public remarks on Saturday, Mayhew said that although she’s retiring from the restaurant business in September, she plans on helping get the new owners, Debbie and Donald Kent, up to snuff.
“Hopefully they can be half as good as me,” she said with a chuckle, which was answered by laughs from the audience.
“I've worked there for 30 years (and owned it for 25 years), and it’s still my passion, and my community is the most important thing in my life,” she said. “It gave me wonderful reasons to get up in the morning to make those butter tarts and muffins and date squares and everything else; the soups.”
Mayhew will remain at M&R Grill until her retirement date of Sept. 30, at which time a celebration will be held at the Capreol Curling Club.
“I’m sure I’m going to have a few words to say that night,” she told Saturday’s crowd during her impromptu remarks. “Everyone is definitely welcome to share this big day.”
Mayhew told Sudbury.com on Sunday that receiving the award the previous day was a “heartwarming” experience indicative of a community that sticks together and supports one another.
“Over the years we’ve lost a lot in Capreol, a lot of things have closed down,” she said. ”To keep things open and close-knit is important to me.”
As such, she said she has strived to keep her money local, and supported as many local causes as she could such as the food bank, curling club, ski club, Lions club and Legion.
M&R Grill has been open for approximately 60 years under different owners, and Mayhew said the upcoming owner, Debbie, has been an employee for several years and expressed interest in taking over alongside her husband, Donald.
Mayhew will remain on board to help ease the transition, but she said it was time for her to retire from restaurant ownership.
Her husband, Moe, has been retired from Hydro One for the past eight years, and by stepping away from M&R Grill will finally be able to retire for real.
“He’s been my right-hand man, my lifesaver, I tell you,” Mayhew said.
Labbée said the Community Champion Award will be handed out each year during Capreol Days. In Mayhew’s case, the award reads that it was presented, “in recognition of your many decades of continuous involvement and support in helping to keep Capreol a healthy, thriving community. Thank you for being a true community champion.”
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com
