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Heroes Without Capes
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: Winter 2025
For Marty Rosenfield, love is the basic recipe.
If Highlands had a Hall of Humankindness, Marty and Donna Rosenfield would be featured front-row.
Why? They’ve spent their finest years here feeding the masses and moving mountains.
For Marty, feeding folks is as routine as breathing. As for mountains, he considers them hallowed – moveable only in magical ways.
If the Rosenfields had the power, they’d preserve every tree, trillium, and truffle on the Plateau.
Caring for people, caring for the land, and caring for food define Marty’s benevolence. His loving cup runneth over. (A noteworthy sidebar: Marty shares cups and bowls of food feeding the poor, organizing charity events, and seeing to it that foodies are always welcome to his fine food festivities.)
How did this gifted duo find its way to Highlands? A few decades ago, Marty met Donna in a culinary event in Atlanta. Each thought the other was a dish-delish. Then, voila! The two dishes got married and remain a twosome for 40+ years.
Early on, however, Atlanta suffered difficult times, prompting Donna and Marty to move North. They landed at a lakeside in the mountains, Lakeside Restaurant to be precise. They ran that popular gathering/dining place for 24 years. The following five years, Marty accepted directorship of Highlands Food Pantry right in the madness of the 2020 pandemic.
Even though challenged by diabetes, he pushed through difficult times as he always does. The year before Covid, he helped raise $40k distributed to 18 non-profits.
When folks asked Marty how he manages the restaurant business, complex food services, huge events, and charities, he replies, “Nothing’s hard if you love it.”
His compassion and work ethic were launched through the model of his New York parents, his father a veteran and his mom an Auxiliary Veteran. A true mom and pop operation.
“Cooking is a creative outlet,” says Marty as he explains the reward for his efforts. “You get to see smiles on people’s faces when that look of Wow spreads brow to chin – drizzling a drop of drool in-between.”
When you ask Marty what’s next on the horizon, he answers, “My power plan is my wife. She’s the event planner. We will live in Highlands, but we are going to be less available … more on the road and in the air enjoying our retirement.”
