Everybody knows cashier Michelle at the Rite Aid in Mukilteo
Published 1:30 am Thursday, October 3, 2019
MUKILTEO — Cashiers are always hitting you up for money for store charities. Those guilt-inducing checkout pleas can add up for a shopper.
But for Mukilteo Rite Aid cashier Michelle Mortrud, it’s personal.
Mortrud, 42, has raised thousands of dollars for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals in the store’s annual Balloon Campaign in the spring that supports Seattle Children’s Hospital.
Rite Aid stores have participated for 25 years in the charity that was co-founded by Marie Osmond.
For the past two years, Mortrud has been top in the region and won trips to Disney World in Orlando.
That’s not why she does it.
She was at Seattle Children’s Hospital as a baby and again as a teen.
“They saved my life twice,” Mortrud said. “It’s a way to give back. It’s an honor.”
Her staccato cadence is distinct and her manners are impeccable. She never forgets to ask if you have a wellness number, so you won’t miss out on the store’s reward program. She knows where everything is and she’ll take the time to show you. After every purchase, she adds a genuine thank-you.
She wears her blond hair short and her lipstick bright. She holds her head high.
Mortrud gets recognized outside the store.
“This morning I ran to Walmart in Marysville. I walked past some customers in a line and someone said, ‘Hi Michelle, I know you from Rite Aid.’”
Happens everywhere she goes.
“I’ll be in plain clothes, but I got a distinct walk,” she said.
Shoppers not only remember her, she also remembers them.
“Half of them, I don’t know their name. I just know their face,” she said. “I’ve worked here for 26 years, Feb. 12.”
She is precise.
Mortrud started working at the store while a student at Kamiak High School. She was hired as a full-time employee after she graduated. She lives in Everett with her dad, Allan, and a Chihuahua mix named Hamlet. She often goes with her dad to his kidney dialysis. Her mom, Pam, died of pancreatic cancer in 2002.
“When she was on her deathbed she had me promise and my dad promise to take care of each other,” Mortrud said.
Store manager Brandon Pappas said Mortrud “can do anything she puts her mind to.”
“She’s very energetic and dependable,” he said. “She’s great with kids. She acknowledges the parent plus the kids. There’s never a down moment with her.”
Mortrud’s first time at Seattle Children’s Hospital was as a 3-week-old infant when she was treated for spinal meningitis.
At 14, she was admitted again for a diabetes condition that led to a month-long coma and two strokes. “A priest came in and gave me my last rites,” she said.
Mortrud said was in the Seattle hospital for five months, a week and a day.
“The doctors said, ‘If she makes it, put her in a group home,’” she said. “Mom and Dad said no.”
She missed a year of school.
“After the coma, I had to learn how to walk, talk, all over again,” she said. “I was like a baby. I wore diapers at 14.”
The strokes had lasting implications. “I kind of walk and talk funny. I’m kind of slow and slur my speech,” Mortrud said. “My left side was damaged and I’ll probably walk like this for the rest of my life, but so be it.”
She shrugs.
“It kind of slows me down, but it doesn’t stop me,” she said. “During nice weather, me and my dog go for two-and-a-half-hour walks.”
Mortrud embraces who she is.
“Sometimes little kids will go, ‘Ha, momma why does she talk like that?’ I explain I almost died. I suffered two strokes. The parents go, ‘I’m sorry.’ I say, ‘It’s OK, if they don’t ask, they won’t know,’” she said.
Wendy Grace, Rite Aid wellness ambassador, said Mortrud is popular with customers.
“People always want to donate to Michelle. They want to help her cause,” Grace said.
Mortrud credits community members with her fundraising success.
“They go, ‘Yeah, I’d like to donate a hundred dollars, twenty dollars, a dollar, five dollars,” she said.
She thanks everybody just the same.
“Every dollar helps.”
Andrea Brown: abrown@heraldnet.com; 425-339-3443. Twitter @reporterbrown.
