From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam. This is My Unsung Hero,

stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

My unsung hero is a boy named Spencer.

He was like a Sunday.

Julie would drop off soup at our house.

I look forward to it every week. I would say thank you for giving me one of the best gifts of my life.

Today's story comes from Hal Hushfield. About 10 years ago, Hal and his wife moved from New York to LA. For a long time he felt like an

outsider. He hadn't realized how much effort it would take to feel like a part of

the community.

So one day he came up with an idea.

He and his one-year-old daughter would become regulars at a local coffee shop.

And I, you know, after several times, I thought, ah, we're kind of becoming regulars, but I don't know,

not really.

And then a year goes by and we're starting to potty train our daughter and we're, I'm at breakfast

with her, and she looks up with me and says I have to go the bathroom

and I was sort of struggling because I thought I don't know where to take her I didn't even know if there's a bathroom there

What am I gonna do and I kind of looked up at Nick the guy behind the counter and I was like

She's got to go and he was like, she's got to go. And he was like, no problem. There's a bathroom in the back.

It's not really advertised, but you guys can use it.

And we went back there and I felt all of a sudden like I was kind of like a part of not only this restaurant but like our neighborhood and

Suddenly like every week after that I really felt like now we were regulars the staff

there would always say hello to us and Nick I don't think he even realizes

...