09/09/2026
Meet Maggie Smith, CHEER’s 2026 Volunteer of the Year
The “People Person” of Long Neck: A Conversation with Maggie Smith.
To sit down with Maggie Smith at the Long Neck CHEER Center is to meet a woman who radiates the kind of steady, quiet energy that built communities like ours from the ground up. At 81 years young, Maggie—a volunteer, a former medical professional, and a self-described “people person”—is a testament to the idea that retirement isn’t an ending; it’s an invitation to keep serving. “I volunteer because they need me,” she says with a warm smile, “and to be honest, I need them. I want people to be happy.”
From X-Ray Technician to Country Life
Maggie’s life has been defined by a natural, hardworking spirit. Born in Hanover, Pennsylvania, and trained in Baltimore during the early 1960s, she spent three decades as an X-ray technician. She remembers the shift in the mid-90s when hospitals began consolidating, turning her stable, five-day-a-week office job into a grueling 24/7 hospital rotation. “I was in my early 50s,” she recalls. “I decided I was going to look for my retirement home.” Her compass pointed toward the Delmarva coast, a place she had fallen in love with during vacations to Ocean City.
In 1998, she made the move, settling into the then-quiet, rural landscape of Millsboro-Long Neck. “I left the city congestion,” she says. “It felt like I was coming back home to the country.”
A Heritage of Hard Work
Maggie credits her relentless drive to her upbringing. She was the fifth of ten children in a devout, hardworking household. Her father, a man with little formal schooling, built a successful life for his large family by operating a local sawmill. “He was skilled labor,” she says proudly. “He raised ten kids on that sawmill. Just hard work and old traditional values.” That same “get it done” attitude followed Maggie into her career and eventually into her retirement, where she found a new purpose at the CHEER center. She joined around 2007, and since then, she has become a fixture of the Long Neck facility.
The “Reformed” Dog Lover
Perhaps the most surprising chapter of Maggie’s life is her journey with pets. As a child, she was afraid of dogs, and growing up in a house where her mother feared them and her father disliked them, she went most of her life without a four-legged companion. That changed when she was 60, thanks to a neighbor who insisted she hold a puppy. “This puppy, of course, started licking my face,” she laughs. “All of a sudden, I was reformed. I learned the value of having a
pet.” Though she doesn’t have dogs of her own right now, she remains the neighborhood’s unofficial “pet therapy” aunt, walking a young terrier daily and watching over friends’ pets whenever they travel.
The Best Time of Her Life
Today, Maggie continues to be a vital part of the Long Neck CHEER Center. She describes her role with grace and humility: “I know who needs me and I know who doesn’t. I don’t push myself on folks, but I’m going to offer to help. And if they say no, I let them do it. If I see they can’t, I say, ‘Let me help you.’” As she looks out at the community that has grown up around her over the last three decades, Maggie is content. “This is the best time of my life,” she says. With her volunteer badge on and a ready smile for anyone who walks through the door, Maggie Smith proves that one of the best job titles you can ever have is simply “Volunteer.”
If you would like to volunteer at CHEER, we can always use help delivering Meals on Wheels, taking care of administrative tasks, leading activities in our senior activity centers or helping with events. Call 302-515-0001 x1100 or email [email protected] .
