To Serve Others

It started with a small cake pan."My mom bought me a cake pan when I was twelve. I did a cake for my little brother when he was six. That was the start for my love of decorating, I guess," Michelle Hallmark says with a slight shrug.Late evening sunlight filters through the windows, and the 19th Street traffic outside flows by in a constant stream of metal and glass as dozens of people head home at the end of the day. Behind her a menu hovers over the counter, touting a variety of sandwiches, salads, soups, pastries and cookies, as well as coffee, tea, soft drinks and lemonade. On this unusually warm December afternoon, sitting at a rear table inside her business Michelle's Bakery and Cafe, it soon becomes apparent that Michelle is one of those rare modest people who would rather talk about anything under the sun except themselves.To be fair, she rarely has time to talk about herself, or anything else these days. After leaving her forty-hour-a-week job at Alex Kontos Fruit Company in Birmingham, where she has worked for the past twenty-four years, Michelle drives back to the bakery in Jasper, sometimes working thirty to forty hours a week there.She also teaches Sunday school at her church, Hunter's Chapel Holy Church of Christ, and was youth director for several years. She's even been to Honduras four times on mission trips."That was a life-changing experience," she says, in a slightly somber tone."It changes your perspective, We take so much for granted. Little things, like clean water, and vitamins. On her first trip, in 2010, she went with a group but without her family. She admits she would have loved to visit longer. "It's so peaceful, so laid back." On the next trip her husband Chris accompanied her, and on the next she and Chris took their daughter Rebecca.Does she have plans to visit Honduras next year?"It's not on the calendar," she says.Michelle Hallmark admittedly leads a busy life, but then she's always been a doer. After graduating Walker High School in 1986, she "went straight to work." Her first job was at the old Consumer Foods in Parkland, after which she worked for Colonial Bank in Birmingham, among other jobs. So how did she end up owning her own bakery business?"When I was pregnant with my daughter, I started helping Martha Clark cater and do cakes. She kind of got me hooked," she explains. "Then I started doing them for family and friends, and catering weddings at my church. When that got to be too much to do from home, we started looking for an opportunity, and that opened up on the highway."The location was adequate but not ideal, and almost two years later she heard of an opportunity to relocate downtown. "The parking is much better here, and we're actually visible," she beams.Free time is somewhat of a luxury these days, but when she's not working, Michelle spends time with her husband of twenty-seven years Chris, whom she calls "the perfect man, other than Jesus", and her two sons Christopher, 26, and Hunter, 24, and 18 year-old daughter Rebecca. She also enjoys watching The Food Network (when she has a few minutes,) playing Candy Crush, and she enjoys Southern Gospel music, especially groups like The Perrys and The Gaithers.Being a business owner can be stressful, but Michelle has a different perspective."I look at it as a gift. I wouldn't have been able to do what I did if the Lord hadn't gifted it to me. He opened the doors, and now I just need to take what He gave me and do what He wants me to do with it. I'm grateful to be a business owner. I look at it as a service and that's my heart: to serve people," she says. She offers a quote from Psalms 37:4-5, a Bible passage she says is her own personal philosophy:"Delight yourself in the Lord,and He will give you the desires of your heart.Commit your way to the Lord;Trust in Him, and He will act." 78