A community of support is critical for people recovering from addiction and other challenges, and in San Jose, a new model of care is making a big difference, thanks in part to a local pastor.

Dana Bainbridge helped create a cafe like no other. It serves up more than food and drink.

"It helps heal the whole person," said Bainbridge. "We all want to be loved and to be able to offer our own love and support to someone else."

The cafe is busy at Urban Sanctuary in San Jose. the church Bainbridge pastors. But before it was a cafe, the giant hall was a soup kitchen where people living with homelessness came to share meals more than a decade ago.

Then, something changed that.

"There were three people who died in a short period of time, which really broke our hearts," Bainbridge explained. "They were close to us, we cared about them. So we began to ask if there another way that we could do this?"

Bainbridge discovered another way, and co-founded Recovery Cafe San Jose in 2014, a model of peer-support for people working to recover from homelessness, addiction, mental health issues, incarceration and other trauma.

"We've seen people begin to stabilize life, to feel cared for, to have friends, to experience joy through celebrations that we have, to feel affirmed and lifted up," she said.

More than 700 people came to Recovery Cafe San Jose last year. To join as a member, people must be clean and sober, go to a weekly support group, and serve in some way, like working as a barista or cleaning up.

They share breakfast and hot lunch that volunteers cook each weekday from food donated by Second Harvest Food Bank and Peninsula Food Runners. They get help connecting to services they need for rehabilitation and can take classes at the cafe, from art therapy to financial literacy to job training. And they have fun together. 

Adrian Rodriguez said he came several years ago, feeling alone, in recovery for addiction and mental health challenges. 

"I was having a really difficult time trying to fit in and I found this place, luckily. And it changed my life miraculously as a place to belong," said Rodriguez.

Now, Rodriguez finds fulfillment working at Recovery Cafe, helping people connect to needs like housing and jobs.

His transformation inspires Bainbridge.

"I have such admiration for the members of this community," she said.

Executive director Julie Anderson said the community Bainbridge helped start is changing lives.

"She's just been essential to getting it off the ground then growing it into what it is today," Anderson said. "It's a completely new model. It's a model of radical love and hospitality. One that basically says, 'If we give you love, we can love you back to life.'"

Recovery Cafe San Jose is the second of 77 locations in the Recovery Cafe Network operating in the U.S. The first Recovery Cafe was founded in 2003 in Seattle. 

Bainbridge was on staff with the network for three years; she now serves on the board of Recovery Cafe San Jose. She's helping plan its annual breakfast fundraiser on Thursday, May 15, at the city's Rotary Summit Center.

So for helping start Recovery Cafe San Jose to provide a life-changing community of support for people in recovery, this week's CBS News Bay Area Icon Award goes to Dana Bainbridge.