It was busy in the South Philadelphia bakery on an early autumn day in 2016. The phone was ringing incessantly. A convention of students, scholars, and scientists in town was fueling the surge in business.
In her uniform and apron, Anyssa El Manfaa was filling orders, yet finding herself drawn into the intellectual conversation around her.
A customer, whose son was presenting at the convention, ordered a cake from the counter. As El Manfaa boxed it, they began chatting about quantum mechanics and the concept of infinity. The conversation so excited her that she almost wrapped her finger in a ribbon she was tying around the cake.
“You know what, kid?” the man told her, “if you had gone to school for this stuff … you could have a lot more conversations like this one.”
He had no idea El Manfaa lost her Moroccan father to deportation when she was 4, that she began working at age 13 to help her mother and siblings, that she was bullied in school — or that she had tried college once and couldn’t handle it while juggling two jobs. All he saw was the promise in her.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a $50 bill, folded it, and slid it under her hand.
“You shouldn’t be working in a bakery. You should be in a classroom,” he told her.
She quit later that week and reenrolled at Community College of Philadelphia, stirred by the confidence of a stranger. There, El Manfaa became an honors program standout.
This spring, she was one of 61 students nationwide to receive a Jack Kent Cooke scholarship, which will largely pay for her to continue on for her bachelor’s degree.
She finished her associate’s degree at CCP with a 4.0 GPA and she’s heading to Swarthmore College this fall to major in conflict resolution and peace studies. And Swarthmore also gave her a scholarship, meaning her next two years of education will be free.
Now, she wishes she could thank the man who so altered her life. But she doesn’t know his name or hometown. Her only clue? She thinks his son attended the University of Pennsylvania.
“If I could see him again,” El Manfaa, 21, said, “I would say thank you for believing in me. Thank you for seeing past the apron.”
