Our View: Merry Christmas to all

Many of us use Christmas as a time to look at our lives and be thankful for our blessings.

We hope Havre does the same this Christmas season.

In the course of reporting the events in this community, we at the Havre Daily News have a better-than-average opportunity of seeing the good side of this special little part of Montana.

We see the people who go out of their way to help folks during the Christmas season and perform important community services throughout the year.

These are people who, without fanfare, give up their evenings, weekends and other spare time to pitch in and help human beings in need.

Among them:

• The Lions Club, the Jaycees, the Rotary, the Kiwanis, the Optimists and many other groups whose sole purpose is to help out at a variety of community projects raise money for scholarships, help provide food for poor people, collect funds for the Salvation Army, help clean city streets, hold parties for young people, help organize activities for Festival Days and much, much more.

• The people at Feed My Sheep Soup Kitchen, the folks at the Havre Food Bank and the Salvation Army workers provide services where government agencies can’t and provide the love and caring government is unable to offer.

• Throughout the year, the Salvation Army helps people in dire need. The Salvation Army isn’t the kind of organization that gets big donations from high rollers. It depends on people’s spare change to make it throughout the year. Common folks drop change and small bills into the red kettles throughout the Christmas season, but that’s only because volunteers are willing to stand at the kettles, sometimes out in the cold, and ring bells. Thanks to those volunteers.

• In the hustle-bustle of the holiday season, it’s important to take a moment to stand back and quietly remember the meaning of the season. The people at Van Orsdel United Methodist Church do that every year and encourage people to join them. They re-create the Nativity scene at a manger next to their church. In a quiet re-enactment of the first Christmas, they stand in silence. It’s a moving scene.

• On Christmas Day, hundreds of people will decide to forgo a dinner at home and eat out with other community members at the Havre Eagles Club at the traditional community dinner. Rich, poor, young, old, single people and large families will be there. But all of this takes place only because the Eagles Club members have agreed to sponsor the event. Two families sponsored the dinner for more than 30 years, but when they were no longer able to, the Eagles stepped in. Volunteers from far and wide come to help out. Friday, these volunteers and some new ones, as well, will be there to help prepare food, serve the dinner and clean up afterward.

• There are hundreds of other people in the area who should be singled out at Christmastime, as well, the teachers who secretly buy gifts for children who wouldn’t have a holiday otherwise, the church people who take care of senior citizens who can’t prepare their Christmas dinner, the many community people who invited those who are alone at the holiday to enjoy Christmas dinner with them.

To each and every one who has reached out to others during the season of giving, we offer our thanks and sincerest wishes for a happy holiday season.