February 2007
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Magda Ligeros finds "everyone is a friend"
For as long as many patients and staff at Children's Hospital Boston can remember, the café's delectable displays of radish roses and apple-slice swans have lent it an air of sophistication and flair. They're the handiwork of Magda Ligeros, or "Maggie" to most. For 24 years, Ligeros has worked the café's grill, served food and worked the cash register. And most nights after work, she goes home to craft her signature food sculptures to cheer up her littlest customers the next day. "When the patients come down to the cafe, they like to smile," she says. "You never know what their day was like upstairs."
Ligeros made a new home in Boston after moving to the United States from the Greek island of Mitilini in 1966. "The hospital is like my second home now. I love it," she says. Her culinary skills, just like her English, are self-taught; she learned both on the job at Children's.
Working in the food industry is common among members of the Ligeros family. Years before Ligeros met her husband, Manny (a fellow immigrant from Greece), he lived in Boston with his family while helping out at his family's diner on Dudley Street. Before Manny retired 10 years ago, the pair worked side by side in Children's café for 13 years.
Ligeros loves to speak her mother tongue with the Greek visitors who frequent the cafe. "When they come down in my line, I explain in their language what kind of food we have because my people don't always know a lot of English," she says. Ligeros is happy to teach non-Greek-speaking customers a little of her language, too. "Now a few customers can say 'yassou' when they see me, which in Greek means 'hello,'" she says.
Ligeros loves to make new coworkers from abroad feel at home at Children's. "America is great because everyone is from all over the world," she says. "Everyone is a friend." In fact, it was a friend from Greece who originally introduced Ligeros to Children's and helped her get her job.
Since Ligeros has worked here for nearly a quarter of a century, it's no surprise that most Children's employees and regular patients know her well—and miss her when she's not in her usual position. But when Ligeros went on vacation last year, her manager, Shawn Goldrick, director of Food Services, was blown away by the response: More than 90 people inquired about her absence. Goldrick himself has made efforts to give Ligeros a wider audience for her food art: This winter, she'll get to entertain Children's patients on the hospital's internal TV station, Channel 22, with a "show and tell" about how she creates those magical, edible sculptures.
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