A social worker friend and I were talking about Jean’s Place and I was telling her how much I loved going there. “Oh yeah,” she said, “I ‘ve heard of Jean’s Place. They do social work there.”

There is no doubt in my mind that Jean’s Place would make a wonderful sitcom for TV or Netflix. Life happens there all the time.

As I sat for lunch and listened, I heard one customer after another being comforted and supported. One woman lost her mother to cancer, another young woman lost her father to a heart attack, one person sitting at the counter was just laid off, another was beaten by her alcoholic husband and was getting divorced.

There seem to be no strangers at Jean’s, everybody knows what’s happening to everybody else, and the staff is always comforting, listening, hugging or encouraging people. They do social work there, along with good fresh food. My friend was right.

The whole time I was eating, people were being listened to and comforted.

I hadn’t thought of it that way, but they do social work there. Community does live, you just don’t see it on the news.