Help celebrate ‘Good Neighbors’

You are invited! We’re having a party today to celebrate our good life in the Mat-Su Valley and the Good Neighbors who are its heartbeat.

The Valley’s history with the day stretches back to 1994 when FTD dreamed up the annual event to encourage “all neighbors to help create a friendlier, more caring and compassionate world through the gift of flowers.”

Sadly, the practice died out here, but we re-instated it last year in recognition of exceptional community service efforts. We honored our Good Neighbors in Individual, Organization and Business categories last year and will announce this year’s best of the best during our open house from 4 to 6 p.m.

Please stop by and help us pay our respects to this year’s Good Neighbor Award winners. We’ll print the story and photos of the winners in the Sunday edition, but we’d appreciate your presence to cheer and clap and help show the honorees that community service is a strong local value that unites our Valley.

To us, community service is a powerful tool that transforms strangers into neighbors with shared goals. Something soulful and rich happens when we put aside our own self-interests in deference to the greater good.

Many times each year we share stories of neighbors helping neighbors with no thought of their own personal gain. We see value in sharing these stories with you. It is too easy to read the news and take away the feeling that the bad in the world outweighs the good. It restores our faith in humanity to hear how often we help each other here. (Just last week a woman told us a story about friends who came in and remodeled their home — paint, tile, carpet, hand railings for the bathroom, etc. — to make it more accessible for her son while they were in Seattle receiving medical care.)

Often we print stories that include information about how folks can help with out this or that community service effort. Sometimes we worry readers will grow weary of reading stories like these. But to your credit Mat-Su, no one complains. If your family has been fortunate enough not to know this hard truth firsthand, trust us, being part of this community means none of us struggles alone.

We spent time Thursday with two volunteer organizations. One is giving homeless youth a place to belong, to dream and to heal and the other is a group of volunteers restoring Alaska Railroad Engine No. 557. Both groups gave us a long list of local businesses and individuals whose donations of cash, time and services make possible the efforts of the Gathering Place and the Engine 557 Restoration Company.

This isn’t about charity. This is about the Alaskan way: we help each other. It’s just who we are and it’s how we teach our kids to be. We value life in the Valley and the independence that comes with it, but we know as well that life here on the edge of the wilderness can turn deadly with little notice. In part, we think that’s why the spirit of helping one another is so strong here.

To the women and men of all ages who serve our community in countless ways every day with no thought for recognition or personal gain, we say good job! Thank you for the example you’ve set. Thank you for reminding us that solutions are within our power and that cooperation is always more powerful than complaining.