Like Mother, Like Daughter: For Rodockers, Running Soup Kitchen Is a Family Affair
Derek Redd Trending
WHEELING -- When Becky Shilling-Rodocker became the executive director of the Soup Kitchen of Greater Wheeling in 2001, her children were never far away. Daughter Caitlin, 11 years old at the time, and son Shilling, then 9, could be found at work around the building. Caitlin would serve food to patrons, while Shilling would sit with them and socialize with a smiling face.
That early experience would stick with Caitlin Rodocker, so much so that more than two decades later, she's still part of the Soup Kitchen. Now, instead of a grade-schooler lending her mom a hand, she's the organization's Just For Kids coordinator who wears plenty of other hats around the kitchen as well.
Mother and daughter have been together at the Soup Kitchen for the last 12 years, and they both consider it a perfect fit. They mesh with each other's strengths and serve as a shoulder to lean on as they work to help feed those in the community most in need.
Shilling-Rodocker was just finishing graduate school at West Virginia University, earning a master's in community health education, when then-executive director Althea Burns fell ill and died unexpectedly. The Soup Kitchen board of directors asked Shilling-Rodocker to take over the position in 2001.
Her children started out drawing up make-believe water bills for her, but they soon began helping out for real. Caitlin Rodocker jumped right in, serving meals to those who were hungry. She just saw her mom helping others who needed it, and followed her lead.
"It was just my normal," Rodocker said. "We would come in almost every day. I think, just from the very beginning, it was so ingrained in us and we would just go in and help."
Going above and beyond to help others was nothing new in Shilling-Rodocker's family. Her mother Vivian Shilling, she said, was "the consummate volunteer."
"I swear, if we were out shopping and somebody needed money or someone needed a ride, they'd just look at my mother," Shilling-Rodocker said. "I just grew up never knowing who would be in our car."
Her grandfather was the same way. She said her grandmother and grandfather had two children but always cooked dinner for 10, because there always would be guests for the meal.
Because of that, Shilling-Rodocker said it wasn't strange to see her daughter have that same servant's heart.
"She's always been very kind and compassionate," Shilling-Rodocker said. "So I'm not surprised that she was drawn to some sort of nonprofit work."
Rodocker said she didn't specifically plan to step into a full-time role at the Soup Kitchen after graduating from West Liberty with a psychology degree, but after all those years helping her mother from childhood through high school and college, it became a natural fit.
What is just as natural for mother and daughter is working together to help keep the Soup Kitchen running. They not only serve thousands of meals annually, they also hold a big summer picnic for families and fill smaller, everyday needs like bus tokens and hygiene products.
In that work, the two realized the yin and yang of their working relationship, and how Shilling-Rodocker's strengths mesh with Rodocker's. Shilling-Rodocker said her daughter is the more organized and pragmatic of the two. And while her title is Just For Kids coordinator, she serves multiple roles.
"She analyzes everything," Shilling-Rodocker said. "She can fix anything. Our handyman over the phone led her to replace the motor on our washing machine. Anything she takes apart, she can put back together."
Shilling-Rodocker likes to do things on the fly, but even if her desk looks messy, she can pull out a letter from a foundation delivered three years ago with no problem.
The two enjoy their symbiotic relationship at the Soup Kitchen, and admit it has gotten them through some tough times. The job of helping the community isn't always easy. They've seen children lose their parents to illness and the struggles of families trying to make ends meet.
Yet they also say that having each other to lean on helps them push through those challenges and better appreciate the success stories. One child who came to the Soup Kitchen grew up and graduated from law school. And there is watching the joy on a mother's face when she can sit down and enjoy a hot meal with her children that she didn't have to cook.
What makes the two even happier is watching another generation of the family learn the importance of helping others. Just as Caitlin and Shilling Rodocker grew up around the Soup Kitchen, Caitlin's daughter Nadia and son Aidan and Schilling's daughter Avery and son Shilling are doing the same.
Maybe a member of the family's youngest generation will feel the calling to work at the Soup Kitchen when they grow up. Shilling-Rodocker and Rodocker will tell them it's a great experience.
"It's a joy," Shilling-Rodocker said of working with her daughter. "It really is. It takes a lot of the stress away."
"It's interesting," Rodocker said of working with her mother. "It's fun. I wouldn't change it. I feel like it's more than just working. It's everything we do. We pretty much do everything together."