News Photo by Meakalia Previch-Liu Mary Delling works at the downtown Alpena Biggby on Thursday afternoon, serving beverages to customers in need of their coffee fix amid the coronavirus pandemic.

ALPENA — A familiar face for many coffee lovers who frequent the downtown Alpena Biggby, Mary Delling does more than just whip up a beverage.

Delling is a mother of two boys, and, this past semester, has also attended Alpena Community College full-time to become a medical assistant. Among the many things she juggles in life, her number-one priority is being a mother, she said.

Not only were her hours at Biggby cut back when the coronavirus pandemic caused all but the most essential businesses to close, all other aspects of life were affected, too. School closures in mid-March throughout the state caused her kids to stay home from school, and she had to remotely complete the college classes she had to take to graduate.

“It was harder to balance the online classes being home, plus trying to be a mom 24/7 and with them needing help with getting their homework done and things like that,” Delling said. “But, now that I’m done with classes, I can help them more, so I don’t feel like they’re going to suffer as much.”

Despite all the changes caused by the pandemic, Delling said it is an honor to help serve the nurses, emergency medical technicians, firefighters, and people who work at doctor’s offices who “live off coffee.”

News Photo by Meakalia Previch-Liu Mary Delling looks through pictures of her kids on her smartphone on Thursday afternoon at the downtown Alpena Biggby location.

“It was nice being able to be open for them to get their coffee in the morning before they head to work,” Delling said.

This semester, Delling said she was training at the Alcona Health Center, taking four online classes, plus working at Biggby.

The clinicals were four hours long, three days a week. Delling said she had four hours of tutoring every week just for one class.

The hard work paid off, though, and Delling graduated with honors and a 4.0 grade-point average while taking on 20 credits this spring semester.

Her next step is a state certification test and hopefully a job at one of the doctor’s offices in town. She said the earliest she would take the test would be either the end of June or beginning of July.

News Photo by Meakalia Previch-Liu Mary Delling hands a beverage to a customer on Thursday afternoon at the downtown Alpena Biggby location.

“I’ve always had a heart to help people,” she said. “Nursing kind of scares me a bit, to be honest, but I wanted to do something still kind of along that line, and a medical assistant program really fit that criteria of what I was looking for.”

Delling said that, if she gets a job working at a local doctor’s office, then she would not have to work weekends or holidays. That alone would help her miss less time with her kids, but would also allow her to still help people.

As a single mother, that would be huge.

Even if Delling gets a job as a medical assistant, she said, she still plans to work at Biggby part-time, working a couple times a month and doing social media for the shop.

“I’m definitely a people person,” she said.

Meakalia Previch-Liu can be reached at 989-358-5680 or mprevich-liu@thealpenanews.com.