Giving It Up If I’m starting to get too gushy in this column, let me know, because I’d really hate to do that. I know it’s the holidays and all, but I’ve been to a lot of events over the past few weeks that show the generosity of this community. What strikes me most though, is that—unlike in many communities—this stuff goes on all year up here I’ve lived in places that may have one fundraiser a year, and it’s always around Christmas. People get together, give a little money, feel better about themselves, and then go home. Most of the time, they want to make darned sure before they write that check that they’re going to get some good credit for it: “Did you spell my name right? Here, let me write it down for you—it’s...” Don’t get me wrong—I’m not knocking them for that, because they did give to the cause, so they deserve credit. But contrast that with the many citizens and business people at the Mountain Kids Christmas event on Saturday night who simply walked in, left valuable drawing and auction items at the table, and then just walked out. Rick Beck, who was in charge of the event, doesn’t even know who many of them were. Here it’s a party. If you had been transported to the Mountain Kids Christmas fundraiser at the San Moritz Lodge, you would have thought you were at a raucous Christmas Party for a big company. And it’s typical of fundraisers here. People and businesses give, and then keep on giving and they have fun doing it. And when they feel they haven’t given enough money or goods or whatever, they give a huge amount of their time. The Wylerhorn Street Gang from Crestline was probably having as much fun back in the kitchen cooking spaghetti as the people were having out front on Saturday night. This group of neighbors from the same street may be seen volunteering at events like this all during the year. Individually, you see them involved in many community groups as well. Although we in Crestline are not the pre-bubblin’-crude-Clampetts that the press would portray us as being, most people and businesses in Crestline don’t have super deep pockets, either. But you’d never know it at these fundraisers, especially when it involves the magic word—kids. People give time, money and effort for a lot of good causes around here, but let the state drop funding that keeps a popular arts program for the kids going at the schools, or let a kid go without a toy at Christmas, or even worse, go hungry ever, and you’re going to draw a crowd in this town. And they don’t stand around waiting for bad things to happen to kids, either. When I went to the fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club earlier in the fall, I watched people walking up to the podium with big checks in their hands that they just wrote, and they didn’t even want their names mentioned over the microphone. I was mightily impressed. The many volunteers in our local mentoring program are examples of people taking that proactive approach with kids—they directly and positively impact the lives of young people one-on-one and very few people ever hear about the good they’re doing. They might spend a hundred hours of their time on one person, but if that one person stays away from drugs and other crime, graduates from high school and goes on to college instead of jail, that mentor gets his or her reward. And they are doing these things all year long—not just when people like me are getting all gushy inside during the holidays and thinking we need to do something for somebody.
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