Good on you, Mat-Su

We had no idea when Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporters Andrew Wellner and Greg Johnson wrote a pair of stories in February 2009 introducing readers to Jim White that we were beginning a relationship that would last for years and raise thousands of dollars to help a family with medical bills and housing needs.

We are proud that after we told readers this story, you gave tens of thousands of dollars, thousands more in donated labor and one man took it upon himself to call the hospital and pay thousands of dollars in White’s medical bills.

We are proud as new grandparents, but not surprised.

We tell these sort of stories so often we’ve come to expect a dependable pattern of events: we tell readers about a neighbor in need and readers respond with help.

Most often we see the community come together to organize fundraisers for families struggling beneath staggering medical bills. We’ve seen weekend car washes, garage sales and spaghetti feeds raise $5,000, $10,000 and sometimes as much as $20,000.

But the response we’ve seen to Jim White’s story has exceeded even our lofty expectations from our community. Our friends and neighbors built an entirely new home for the White family who, until this week, was living in a 50-year-old trailer.

Israel Nelson is one of our readers who read the Whites’ story and reached out to help. He’s been the energy behind much of the fundraising work necessary to bring this dream to fruition.

Bob Pevan, president of the Mat-Su Homebuilders Association, also got involved. He even invited White to be part of the Mat-Su Home Show where the organization also was raising money for the project. And Pevan got further involved by taking on the project as a contractor.

Whether you donated $1, $10, $1,000 or $10,000 to the Jim White Project, we should all be proud of this community effort.

Folks from outside the Mat-Su Borough sometimes poke fun of us and call us names that seek to reduce who we are to pithy bumper sticker sayings.

Who we are will not be decided by our Anchorage neighbors or naysayers Outside. It is our actions, how we treat our neighbors, that reveals the most about who we are.

Who lives in the Mat-Su Borough? We are the kind of people who help each other.

Good on you, Mat-Su!