Editorial

Help wanted: volunteer needed for keeping track of 'good deeds'

Friday, July 11, 2003

We have a job for someone.

Here's the deal. Each year in McCook and the surrounding area, individuals and organizations do thousands upon thousands of good deeds. Some involve hundreds of hours of volunteer service; others are spontaneous acts of good will.

It's a way of life in this area. Friends and family members reach out to each other. Neighbors help neighbors. Entire communities rise up to help families in times of crisis.

The community's tradition of caring and sharing is long-standing, with the standard set forth by the Gazette's founder, Harry Strunk, when he placed the following words in the newspaper's masthead: "Service is the rent we pay for the space we occupy in this world." Many others have echoed the same sentiment, including the U.S. Jaycees, who proclaim in their creed: "Service to humanity is the best work of life."

In the McCook area, we do our best to say thank you when our friends and neighbors do nice things. But we would like to do more. We need someone to keep track of the nice things that community members do ... to take on the task of starting and keeping a "Diary of Good Deeds."

It will be a big job. The person who takes on the assignment must listen to the radio, read the newspaper and take telephone calls about good deeds. To keep up, it will probably be best to devote an hour or two each day to finding out about, and writing down, all the good things that happen in McCook and the surrounding area.

But the rewards will be great, too, because you will be recognizing good works and inspiring others to give and to serve. At the end of the year, the Gazette will print a special section listing all the good deeds recorded in the diary. The special section, which will be called "Diary of Good Deeds," will be inserted in the newspaper and presented to all attending the annual McCook Chamber of Commerce banquet in January.

Interested? To further discuss the idea, you are invited to call Gene O. Morris, publisher of the McCook Daily Gazette; Butch Mires, president of the McCook Area Chamber of Commerce; or Marie Owen, executive director of the chamber. Gene and Butch can be reached at 345-4500. Marie's number if 345-3200.

People in the Golden Plains have hearts of gold. Help celebrate that fact. Volunteer to be the keeper of the "Diary of Good Deeds."

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