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EDITORIAL: Charity comes from the heart

Sooke looks after each other like few communities do

We hear it so often that it risks becoming a cliche, but it’s unmistakably true: Sooke is its own little capital when it comes to locals banding together and helping each other out.

Recently, a new Sooke resident went out of her way to help a grief-stricken Sooke family who lost someone right before the holidays – a stranger helping a stranger.

This is a regular occurrence in Sooke, and one of hundreds of others who volunteer their time and efforts to lessen life’s burden on others; a mother who can’t make ends meet, a kid who won’t get any toys this Christmas, or a father who lost a child to cancer.

Sooke isn’t rich, heck, we still don’t have sidewalks, and our community hall is decaying before our eyes – but a thousand here, a thousand there, and Sooke still always finds a way for its people, with the little that it has.

A Sooke resident who raised $1,000 individually is incomparable to the hundreds of millions of euros oligarchs have carefully tucked away in their Swiss bank accounts, but whereas their money goes towards a $400 million yacht, the $1,000 goes towards helping someone pay for desperately needed medication, food, or warm clothes.

That alone is evident in Sooke’s mantra of community spirit, where individuals will set aside their own need for things and put whatever money they can towards fulfilling a wish, or carry a family on through an impossible situation.

Investing in humanity, which brings us to another paradox at play here.

Why is it that someone who barely has anything to eat for themselves will donate food? It’s not fiction. Our own Sooke Food Bank, witnesses this behavior regularly.

Value. People who have nothing or very little, value what others assume: food and shelter as the most basic.

Sooke isn’t Victoria. It’s not Vancouver. This town struggles with its own basic needs, such as insufficient medical services, an inefficient transportation system and lack of housing, but where the province turned its back on it, it makes up by way for sheer perseverance and faith in the human spirit.

So congratulations Sooke. You look after each other like few communities do, and many have yet to learn, and that’s something truly worth being proud of.