Canteen worker serves up meals, guidance to Virden students after nearby First Nation gave her a home

A canteen worker at a southwest Manitoba high school is paying it forward to students, after a family from a nearby First Nation gaveher a home more than three decades ago, when she was a teenage professional wrestler.

Tina-Marie Lindzen, now 52, serves up fresh breakfast sandwiches, cookies and other snacks to students at Virden Collegiate Institute but she does more than just make meals for the young people.

"In between all that and after that, I do a lot of counselling for the kids," Lindzen said duringan interviewin Virden.

Students approach her to talk about "pretty much everything," frompost-secondary plans tohow their day is going. She's not a certified counsellor, but says she has a "background in life."

Mark Keown, the principal of the Virden school, said the division's mental health policy encourages every student to have an adult in the building they're connected with, whether it's a teacher, custodian, education assistantor, in Lindzen's case, a canteen worker.

"Tina has embraced that and just her natural ability to build relationships with kids, kids feel that comfort," Keown said. "That comfort enables them to sit down and have more than just a chat about what's for lunch."

Lindzen also has a personal connection with Chief Lola Thunderchild ofnearby Canupawakpa Dakota Nation.

"We go way back," Thunderchild told CBC.

Thunderchild's mom took Lindzen in as a teenager, when Thunderchild's family lived in Virden.

"I've always just known Tina to be there and part of the family," the chief said.

Students travel from Canupawakpa to attend school in Virden, about 70 kilometres west of Brandon.

It was Thunderchild who approached Lindzen about running the canteen, after Keown saidthe school was looking for someone to take the job.

"I said, 'I will do anything for [Canupawakpa] because they took care of me,'" Lindzen said.

"They gave me life when there was no life."

'Took me in like a daughter'

Lindzen said she was working as a professional wrestler in British Columbia in the late 1980s when she was kidnapped and taken to the United States.

"I was trafficked as a child," Lindzen said.

She found her way back to Canada and ended up travelling to Virdento wrestle.

"A lot of stuff happened. I was sort of just stranded, and I'm here [in Virden] and I'm 16 years old and I don't really know what's going on."

That's when she met "a wonderful woman" namedWilma WasicunaThunderchild's mom.

"She took me in like a daughter," Lindzen said. "She took care of me. She taught me how to be a woman. She got me a job. And she had three other children."

But in1988, tragedy struck.

"Shortly afterwhen Tina came into our lives, my mother was murdered,"Thunderchild said.

She was killed by her common-law partner in a murder-suicide, according to a newspaper report at the time.

"Tina was with us there that night," and helped support the family through their trauma, said Thunderchild.

"She kept an eye on us, wanted to make sure we were OK. We ended up moving with my grandmother back to the community in Canupawakpa, and [Tina]stayed with us."

Lindzeneventually left Manitoba and lost touch with Thunderchild.

But Thunderchild tracked her down with the help of a private investigator, and later on Facebook.

More than three years ago, their relationship came full circle when Lindzen, who had been living in Toronto, moved back to Virden, a community of just over 3,100.

Thunderchild got Lindzen the job at the school.

"[She]told me, 'Alot of times the kids will come to you and have [a] conversation with you and you're perfect to be there for them and have that conversation,'" saidLindzen.

Connection with kids

She said she can relate to high school students because of her own past trauma, and because she never got to livea normal teenage life.

"I was kind of cut off, so I never really had it," Lindzen said. "Maybe a little bit mentally I'm sort of stuck in that era, so I'm able to connect with them really easily."

Canupawakpapays foremergency lunches for its students atschools inVirden,and Lindzen said no child will go hungry as long as she's around.

She is pursuing an education in police studies, and hopes to becomea private investigator to find missing children.

Running the canteen and giving guidance is her way of giving back to a community that stepped up in her time of need.

"I just try to encourage the kids," she said. "It's a whole big world, and you can be anywhere and do anything, and you can always have your home, too."