Editorial: Community spirit alive and well

This time every year, a most remarkable and heartwarming ingredient to the arrival of the festive season emerges.

It is community spirit wrapped up in a thing called Christmas cheer.

Where a wide and varied swathe of the community make the decision to become involved in helping people who struggle at this time of the year to deliver a festive spirit within their own families.

Individuals and social groups. Businesses and schools. Service clubs and community organisations.

They all put up their hands to say "we can do something" and that attitude not only benefits those they set out to assist, but the community as a whole.

It's a true and sincere feel-good thing.

The annual Christmas Cheer appeal, which Hawke's Bay Today and the preceding Daily Telegraph and Hawke's Bay Herald Tribune has embraced for just on 30 years, now benefits not hundreds but thousands.

The generosity of the private and business community now sees enough money raised, and enough food, gifts and goodies collected, to fill about 1000 cheer parcels which are distributed to the less fortunate out there.

To individuals, couples and families who struggle to get by, especially at Christmas where the extra money for a treat or two just isn't there.

Church groups and social agencies carefully screen those on the receiving list and work in closely with East Coast Family Works in Hastings and the Napier City Council Community Development crew in Napier who co-ordinate the collections, packing and distribution.

The 2013 Hawke's Bay Christmas Cheer Appeal kicks off today - but the donations started arriving about a fortnight ago from people who do their bit every year. And they will continue to flow in.

Yes, it is remarkable and heartwarming because it so vividly illustrates that we care. That there are a lot of very good people out there who want to share their enjoyment of a special time of the year with others.

The way they responded to solo mum Kelly this week who is struggling to get by.

The food and cash assistance soon started to arrive and Kelly summed everything up when she went into "pay it forward" mode. She knew some neighbours were in equal dire straits so she packed up some of the food she had been gifted and passed it on to them.

"I still feel there are people worse off than me," she said.

That is what it is all about.

It's about caring and, you know, this Hawke's Bay community is pretty darn good at it.