Its 43 degrees out. The sun shines through the main space’s windows. There’s an uproar of laughter that’s filling the entire cafe. Our managers our prepared at our front desk to welcome all who walk through the door.
The door opens, and a fragile head peeks in. John says gently “hello there.”
A slim, tired and frozen looking woman stands before us.
She is crying. Crying those tears that yank at our insides. The kind of cry that sends shivers through my body, telling myself to throw my arms around her.
She is pregnant, unhoused, and hungry.
We ask her name. She whispers gently and we sense her fear.
She said “I need to get clean. I have a husband, 2 small children and a baby in my body.
Can you help me? I need to get clean.”
We bring her in, sit with her and listen to a piece of her life. Her life is now right in front of us.
Next, each floor manager acts.
One surrounds her with embraces, soft sentences and the deepest respect known to us.
Another is on the phone, calling our community partners for a place to guide this woman too for the services she is requesting.
The other floor manager is watching this all, taking in the steps he just watched his peers take to surround this new friend of ours with the radical hospitality he has been trying to learn.
He now knows.
We find a place, 2 blocks from our front door that will hold her with love and respect until the medics arrive and take her to the ER. Where she will stay until being transported to a woman’s treatment program.
One of our female recovery coaches walks the woman, hand in hand those two blocks where she gently hands her off into another person’s hands.
Every day here at the cafe individuals trust us with their pain, fear and utter desperation.
We act.
We GET to act.
