JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Mornings are always better with a 'cup of joe', especially when served fresh by Dunkin' Dee.
"She was very warm, she always calls me sweetie," Mayport Dunkin' Donuts customer, Teagan Fogarty, said.
Diosella Snyder has been working at the Jacksonville Beach Dunkin' Donuts franchise for 30 plus years.
"She's like the heart of this store," Mayport Dunkin' Donuts owner, Christina Leal, said.
"You can talk, you listen to their problems, they listen to my problems and I think it's nice," Snyder said.
Leal has owned the Dunkin' Donuts for about 15 years but she quickly learned who the real boss was.
"We came down to do some preliminary inspections and she knew we were coming and she greeted us and she was very inquisitive wondering what we were doing in her store and she thinks of this store as her own," Leal explained.
Dee transforms the Dunkin' into a holiday display for every occasion, a warm feeling that was gone for quite some time last year.
Dee got COVID-19 in early 2021 and while quarantined she was hit by a tree limb while doing yard work. She was found unconscious by her husband with shattered bones in her face.
"She was totally out in a coma and when she woke up all her jewelry was gone had been stolen her clothes were gone she had to leave the hospital just in a hospital gown she didn't have clothes to leave," Leal said.
Dee also had problems at home, as her roof and air conditioning needed repairs. Unable to work, the bills piled up and so did her credit card debt.
That's when her Dunkin' family stepped in.
"I had to one day just ask her, Miss Dee do you trust me and she said yes I trust you and I said do you trust me enough to give me your bank account information and she said yeah of course if you promise that you're not going to give me any money," Leal said.
Leal and Snyder's co-workers recently organized a GoFundMe to help her pay off her debt.
"I cried when I found out because I know they are good people I never thought they'd do this for me especially my boss because she know what I'm going through because I talk to her all the time," Snyder said.
"She's served them for over 30 years, their coffee every single morning, so I felt like we kind of owed it to her and her community owed it to her to be there for her in her hard times that she was having," Leal said.
America runs on Dunkin', but the beaches run on Miss Dee.