Here are some things I didn’t know before today:

Jerita Nelson loves shoes as much — maybe more — than I do.

AnNyce Kelting Hoff knows that my mother, who was a dear friend of her mother, would have had a cup of coffee front and center with her dessert at the Lenten Luncheon on Tuesday at Trinity Lutheran Church. AnNyce remarked on this because I was quaffing water.

Someone would have had to scrape me off the ceiling if I drank the coffee. That someone would likely have been Kolleen Taylor, seated on the other side of me, who remarkably realized that I was having too good of a time to take notes, so she did.

It was a neat surprise.

Other, more crucial surprises:

There are women in this community — those three included — who invest their time and concern on projects as diverse as making brownies for city and county street and road workers to building rape kits for survivors of sexual abuse.

There are groups of women (and men and children) who make homeless kits for people who do not have shelter — yes, we have a homeless population here. Those kits include a tarp to lie on or, if necessary, to huddle under.

Women tie plastic bags together, making “yarn” that is then woven on looms made by volunteers, and with those looms they weave mats that people who have nothing can rest on.

Women quilt.

They make food bags out of old t-shirts.

And diapers.

They run food pantries.

And clothing closets.

They raise money for necessary causes.

They play the piano.

They sing.

And they pray.

There in the dining hall of Trinity, the thoughtfulness that fuels our community was consolidated into a room full of women.

“Without them, there would be many agencies, organizations and individuals who would have enormous holes in the assistance they provide,” Kolleen Taylor said when writing about the women. “It’s the best of us, women walking, talking and sharing time and talent, acts of kindness and ideas to make life better for those in need. We can’t solve all the problems of the world, but this we can do.”

I learned some important things today.

Chief among them?

We are blessed.

Jane Curtis is editor of the Daily Freeman-Journal. She is an Iowa Newspaper Association Master Columnist.