MECHANIC FALLS – Doreen Piper doesn’t wait for the dirty plates, utensils and glasses to come to her.

After she finishes washing the dishes that the waitresses bring to the kitchen, Piper goes into the dining area at Longbranch Restaurant and looks for empty plates. If she can’t find any, she returns to her work station and polishes the sink and other appliances.

“I like to keep everything nice and clean,” she said.

Piper, 42, has been working as a dishwasher at the restaurant in Mechanic Falls since it opened in February.

Since Piper has Down syndrome, some people may assume that the owners of the restaurant hired her as a good deed.

That is not the case.

“She is the best dishwasher we ever had,” said Kathy Lovely, co-owner of the Lewiston Street eatery. “When she’s not washing dishes, she’s shining the dishwasher.”

Piper used to be a client of Pottle Hill Inc., an agency based in Mechanic Falls that provides job coaching and other services to people with disabilities.

In the beginning, she traveled to different job sites with other clients, doing everything from cleaning offices to mowing lawns.

After she told her job counselor, Al Kaleel, that she had always wanted to work in a restaurant, he put her in touch with the people who run the dining services at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center.

It didn’t take long for Kaleel to realize that Piper no longer needed his daily supervision. She was ready to work independently, to be responsible for her own schedule, to get her own paycheck.

“It was obvious that she just didn’t need us,” said Kaleel. “She’s a model employee. It’s that simple.”

Piper eventually left St. Mary’s for a small diner in Poland. After about a year there, she got a job at the former Rail Station Restaurant in Mechanic Falls. When that restaurant closed earlier this year, she immediately contacted Kaleel and begged him to help her find another job.

As her hands got dry and callused, her blue eyes got brighter, her smile wider.

“Working makes me feel good,” she said. “I like being in the community. I like people.”

Piper walks to Longbranch every morning from her parents’ house in Mechanic Falls. It takes her about 10 minutes, and she always arrives about a half-hour early.

She admitted that she doesn’t always feel like going to work, especially when it is cold and snowing outside

“But I have to,” she said. “It’s my job.”

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