"If ... unemployed" sign goes viral
Business owner's kindness inspires a stressed-out country
As ugly news stories continue to unfold in America, people say privately they hope God will send a sign that we will be OK — that focuses on our common humanity and love rather than division and hate.
In Port Huron, Michigan, there’s literally a sign.
It appeared in the window of Troy Cleaners on Garfield Street: “If you are unemployed and need an outfit cleaned for an interview, we will clean it for FREE! When times are tough, we want to help you look your best.”
The message is from Team Leader Jonathan Bence.
Bence owns the place.
When asked why he called himself the team leader, rather than owner or CEO or president, Bence said, “We’re a team here. I can’t do it by myself.”
What inspired the letter? A dry cleaner in Wichita, Kansas.
“A mentor, a fellow dry cleaner who helped us get through COVID and all that happened,” Bence said. “There were so many times I should’ve given up and declared bankruptcy or I couldn’t make payroll. But someone always comes in to pay a past-due bill and we kept making rent and mortgage payments.”
Fury from one customer, generosity from another
The pandemic hit two years after he purchased the dry cleaning service in 2018. Bence said he struggled to figure out what to do.
His wife Susan said to have faith and know that their community would always be there for them. Because that’s what people in a small city do, support each other.
His machines were old. When they broke, and he couldn’t get the loans needed to fix them. One day, a man who had called ahead to get a suit cleaned for a wedding arrived to discover that the machine needed for job had broken. All they could offer was pressing.
The customer was furious.
Bence just kept apologizing over and over again.
“I felt horrible,” he said.
A couple waiting at the counter heard the man tear into Bence. A few days later, they returned to give Bence $500 in cash to get his equipment repaired. The strangers explained that they said their weekly devotionals and had personal prayer time, and that’s what they came up with.
As it turns out, the repair bill totaled $492.
“The motor was, like, $300 and it took a couple hours of the mechanic’s time,” he said. “So many people have said, ‘We’re praying for you guys. Hang in there. This community needs you.’ I’ve had clients ask to pray with me on the front counter.”
As strangers helped him, Bence wanted to help others. Thus, the sign.
A handful of people needing help with job interview outfits have brought clothes to the cleaners, Bence said. He absorbs the cost. His employees relay messages of gratitude.
“I’m not doing anything to get attention. I’m not trying to be a celebrity,” Bence said. “We’re just trying to do our share, that’s all.”
The more people who know about the free cleaning offer for those in need, the more likely that someone who needs help will come get it, Bence said. “Many thanks.”
Personal struggle leads to charity, not anger
So many people have shared the letter in Michigan and throughout the country.
One of more than 1,200 likes and responses on the Port Huron Facebook page included, “Gives me hope in mankind.”
On X, the site formerly known as Twitter, more than 11,000 likes and retweets and posts include these comments:
This the America I’m fighting for.
People helping people. The only way.
This is the sort of content I’m here for.
Good to see this from my father’s home town.
Not all heroes wear capes,
This transcends a lot of nonsense floating around.
There are still good people in this world.
I love it when people show how easy it is to build a better world
People on social media say, after moving away from the Blue Water Area, this little letter remands them of small town life and what it means to look out for each other.
Below: Jonathan Bence shares a “blessing” of COVID in Sept. 16, 2024. (Video: PW Howard)
Port Huron is a border town, across the St. Clair River from Sarnia, Ontario. You’ll see Canadian flags waving beside American flags because so many families have relatives on both side of the border. The Blue Water Bridge is filled with trucks carrying everything from automobiles to timber.
Drivers take the last exit before Canada to get to Troy Cleaners, just off Pine Grove.
Local charities often stop by the little business to collect items for silent auctions, and Bence figured the message on his sign would do something for everybody.
“You never know, there might be somebody who needs help,” he said.
Note: The story naturally ends here. But there’s more below for curious readers.
The story behind the story
Bence, 38, is a husband and father of three who lives on a farm in Casco Township. He is the son of a chiropractor and a mom who homeschooled her kids.
After 8th grade, Bence went to Stony Creek High School, later the U.S. Army and then Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical and computer engineer as a double major, then returned for a master’s degree in electrical engineering.
He has always loved machines and technology.
Bence was a summer intern at U.S. Steel in Detroit, then Chrysler and finally the U.S. Army Research and Development Center next to the General Motors Tech Center in Warren in the super computing division. After graduating college, Bence took a job with the Department of Defense where he stayed almost a decade — going from computing into powertrain testing and advanced technology on military vehicles.
“I never felt at home working for someone else,” Bence said. “I just kind of wanted to do my own thing.”
He was less interested in the high-powered job or money than spending more time with family, raising goats and cows and chickens and collecting free-range eggs.
People sometimes forget that life is for living, he said.
After looking for a business to buy for a couple years, knowing he loved working on cars and on the tractors and mechanical stuff on his farm, he gave up the search for a car repair shop and decided on Troy Cleaners.
Investing in a dream
“I was fascinated with all the machines and everything it takes to make dry cleaning happen,” he said, noting that he has opened a second cleaners on 26 Mile Road in Shelby Township and just signed a lease for a third site in Lapeer.
Below: Jonathan Bence talks about why this machine costs $95,000. (Video: PW Howard)
Troy Cleaners is among the last, if not the last, surviving dry cleaner between Marysville and Port Austin, up at the tip of the Thumb, which is how people who live in a state shaped like a mitten talk about geography.
“In Port Huron, there used to be 13 of us at one time. People want to say ‘Congrats, you’ rest only ones left.’ But it’s lonely being a dry cleaner. By the grace of God we’re open,” Bence said.
“Before the pandemic, we would do 400 to 500 shirts a day. A good day now is 100 shirts. People’s habits have changed. They’re on Zoom meetings and wear Polo shirts. People don’t dress up,” he said.
“Our best customers are Baby Boomers, and there all retiring. A client, who has been coming to Troy Cleaners for 45 years, said he was sorry he doesn’t come in much. He brings in a Tommy Bahama shirt and pants. He was $1,000 a month in sales back in the day,” Bence said.
These days, clients find ways to refer new business.
Never give up
“It is an everyday thing to live by faith. Ultimately, you do good where you can,” Bence said. “Even with COVID almost taking us out, there are so many blessings that came our way.”
Three dry cleaning machines broke in a single week. They were new in the 1980s and, unlike machinery used by car manufacturers, he said, you can’t just oil and go. Dry cleaning machines are almost as complicated as computers, he said.
“I couldn’t begin to think how we would get that money. Banks wouldn’t give you loans,” Bence said. “I was trying to McGyver the thing.”
That’s why that $500 gift meant so much.
After COVID, the federal government provided low-interest loans that allowed Bence to make payroll and buy machines with price tags ranging from roughly $12,000 to $95,000.
When the St. Clair Inn shifted from in-house laundry, they went to Troy. When the local hospital shifted from in-house, laundry, they went to Troy, too.
Commercial business replaced customers whose lifestyles have changed. The change in clientele, which includes spas and restaurants, delivers new profit potential.
So Bence has invested while also shifting to more sustainable equipment from Europe and processes that are less harsh on the environment. New technology allows for cleaning items that people used to have to throw away.
“Because textiles are changing,” he said. “Let’s say your kitty ends up urinating on a wool blanket or a wool coat. Dry cleaning doesn’t do much for water-based stains, only oil-based stains. The absolutely best way, you want to wet-clean it, which is using acid-based soaps, different than laundry, and then you have a special wet-cleaning dryer, that dries it down to about 10% moisture content. You don't have any shrinkage and get that urine out of that coat.”
He happily offers a tour of his cleaning operation, and it’s beautiful. Bence talks about protein molecules and how new machines use germ-killing technology. He wonders if clients have any idea all the amazing things that can be done now.
Concern and worry has waned as every day gets better and the business grows.
A Hebrew word for businessman (Ohmein) means “man of faith,” believe it or not, he said. Jewish friends have shared this little tidbit.
So having faith in business makes total sense to Bence.
Challenges pop up every single day.
A new employee failed to show up for work, and then ghosted Bence, and his employee who presses pants needs to take vacation, he said. “I guess I’ll be pressing pants.”
One more thing? Please, Bence said, “help spread the word that we’re always hiring. And please share the free garment cleaning service for those who need it for an interview.”
That is so nice
Heartwarming!