Motherhood Helps North Shore Franchise Owner Navigate Pandemic

PEABODY, MA – When life came to a stop for so many a year ago, it kicked into overdrive for Lindsay Wallin.

The Lynnfield mother of two, who recently moved from Melrose after living there for many years, not only had to worry about her 10- and 12-year-olds suddenly at home each day with schools closed. But she had to worry about her employees and all of their families from her nine McDonald’s franchises throughout the North Shore.

Unlike most businesses that shifted to remote work at the onset of the pandemic, Wallin's franchises remained open. Her employees were deemed essential workers. With a whole new set of safety protocols and guidelines heaped upon them, the franchises become go-to locations for many who had no place else to go for a meal and a small dose of familiar comfort.

"It was a huge shift," Wallin, who owns franchises in Beverly, Danvers, Peabody, Salem, Middleton, Saugus and Lynn, told Patch. "We had to overcome a lot at the beginning. Never been so thankful to have a drive-thru. The drive-thru saved the day for us. But then you had employees afraid to come to work and you never knew what the next step of the shutdowns would be.

"We had employees with family members getting sick. Every day there was something new and something to overcome."

At the same time, she was directing the franchises — three of which are 24-hour locations — through the new uncertain world, she was also a mother who two children now out of school who often had to go to the stores unexpectedly at random times of the day when issues arose.

Yet, as much as it was a difficult time, Wallin said being a mother helped her understand some of the concerns and emotions of her employees.

"Being a parent having kids home you recognized what the stresses were," she said. "Dealing with other parents, and high school kids, you had to think of ways of how to keep them coming to work while helping them as they are a part of this."

She said she increased the pay of each employee $1 for the first three months and provided meals for them to take home to their families to help ease the burden of making trips to the grocery store. She also provided masks for work and for home.

If employees were truly afraid to come to the stores, she said they were allowed to stay home until they were more comfortable.

"We were very fortunate that we have a great crew," she said. "Some of them knew people who were probably making more money staying home (through unemployment) than they were going to work. But, fortunately, we didn't lose that many people."

She said her employees were very adaptable to the new guidelines when it came to customers with the biggest hurdles making the adjustments within their own social lives.

"They are used to taking their breaks and using them to sit together and talk with each other for a few minutes," she said. "But we're telling them that they can talk to each other, but they can't be in people's faces. A lot of them carpool too, so we had to make sure they knew to wear masks while in the car together."

She said she also had to rethink how to serve families as a restaurant. She had previously brought in events like character appearances and a free library to her locations. But amid the pandemic, her dining rooms were closed.

So, she began a Happy Meal program for families where a kid's meal was included with each adult meal through the third-party delivery service.

As the pandemic eases, ongoing programs include donating meals to the Healthy Students, Healthy Saugus initiative where each student gets a punch card for a free meal every week for a whole year to help support those who don't have food security on weekends.

Wallin's Danvers and Middleton locations are also two of six locations that will donate $1 from each purchase of a Minute Maid Pink Lemonade Slushie, Strawberry Shake or McCafe Smoothie in May to the Colleen E. Ritzer Memorial Fund and Step Up for Colleen 5K, in honor of the Andover resident and Danvers teacher murdered at her school in 2013.

"Before the pandemic being a mother is one of the things that helped me a lot in a very public business," she said. "Motherhood all along the way taught me different needs that customers and employees have.

"There are a lot of things you wouldn't necessarily recognize that a parent has to go through, but being a mother has given me an opportunity to do that."

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)