Theresa Babin more like guardian angel for kids

Published 12:00 am Friday, March 27, 2009

By ROBIN SHANNON
L’Observateur

RESERVE — Should you happen to walk through the front doors of St. Peter Catholic School in LaPlace, the first person you will probably see is Theresa Babin.

Her designation at the school is administrative assistant, but that doesn’t quite cover the range of her responsibilities. On top of the normal office work, Babin has been known to be a nurse, a counselor, a party planner, a substitute teacher or just a general volunteer.

“I wear quite a lot of hats around here,” Babin said. “If you need anything from me, you better catch me while I’m working.”

Babin has worked in the office of the school since 2000 but said she has been a part of the St. Peter School family since day one, when she dropped her eldest son Tommy off for his first day of school.

Babin said she had just moved to Reserve from New Orleans and wanted to send her son to a Catholic school in the area. St. Peter was that school.

“When I got here, I didn’t know anyone at the school,” Babin said, “but everyone was just so nice. I felt welcome from the first day.”

Babin said parents at the school stepped up to help her get Tommy to and from school while she worked at her day job at the Good Hope Plant.

“They picked him up and shuttled him to the babysitter in Garyville,” said Babin. “It was wonderful.”

Babin started working in the school in 1990, when she signed on to be a volunteer with the Parent/Teacher Club. After about 10 years in the PTC, Babin jumped further into the school to become a substitute teacher and a teacher’s aid for pre-kindergarten classes before finally settling into the office she now calls home. Babin said she enjoys the hectic nature of the office and all the responsibilities that come with it.

“When you are in a small school everyone has to pull together and work as a team,” said Babin. “We all feel like we are part of a big family.”

Between the daily clerical work that comes with being a school administrator, Babin must also take time out when kids come in with problems with school or the occasional minor sickness or injury.

“I doctor them up if the need attention, call their moms if they need to talk to mom and send them on their way,” said Babin. “I think that’s why I have been here so long. It all comes down to the kids. They come in here with problems, and I fix them up.”

When kids come in with cuts or bruises, Babin starts all treatments with a small bottle of disinfectant that as become known as her “magic spray.”

“It’s amazing what this stuff can do,” Babin said. “I had a parent with a young girl approach me at the school’s fall festival and say that her daughter wouldn’t let anyone touch her scrape until she was sprayed with my magic spray.”

On top of her office duties at the school, Babin is also the organizer of the school’s Girls Pageant and Spring Ball, which she has been a part of for the past 17 years.

“We brought the Spring Ball back in 1993 because we wanted to resurrect something from the ‘50s and ‘60s,” Babin said. “It’s a lot like a carnival ball, but in the spring time closer to Easter.”

Every year Babin and her “team of volunteers” get together and assemble the decorations, lights, food and all the rest of the bells and whistles.

“I couldn’t do it all alone,” said Babin. “My volunteers deserve some of the credit for all that gets done.”

Outside of school, Babin is a wife of 27 years and mother of three adult children. She is also the grandmother of two young grandchildren Kaytin, 7, and Hayden, 9.