Beyond the Byline: Needs rising; do what you can

WILKES-BARRE — This week another good thing happened that will have a positive effect on many in our community who are in need.

The Luzerne Foundation held its annual Nonprofit Forum and 30 local agencies received a total of $165,000 — three organizations received $10,000 each and the other 27 were given $5,000 each.

That’s the good news.

The not so good news is that 80 nonprofits applied for a chance at some of the funding, but were not chosen. That’s not to disparage what the Luzerne Foundation does — quite the opposite. The Foundation has been working tirelessly to ease the burden on all of these nonprofits so they can keep pace with the growing needs in our community.

Let’s face it, federal and state dollars have been declining for years, leaving all the nonprofits competing for dwindling donor dollars.

And this is just to keep pace with the growing needs — expanding services or programs just isn’t possible, despite how beneficial that would be.

All this said, it is still eye-opening to sit in the audience and watch and listen to the presentations given by representatives of each nonprofit. Anybody with an ounce of compassion can clearly see that help is needed everywhere and it’s needed now.

Webster defines compassion as “the sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” I prefer to live in a compassionate world.

Take for example all those human beings who have, for any number of reasons, found themselves homeless and living in makeshift tents under a bridge, relying on the warmth of a Sterno can.

I learned many lessons from my parents, compassion being just one and, perhaps, the most important.

Which brings us back to those homeless people trying to keep warm under a bridge in sub-zero temperatures or facing the prospect of no food to eat. Or all those served by all those nonprofits — each with noble missions and staffed with the most compassionate humans out there — with never enough funding to help all that need help.

Without debate, this just shouldn’t be.

No matter what the reasons are for these human beings to be without shelter, or food, or warm clothing, or direction is not important — not at all. What is important is that these people have no place to go to be warm enough to survive or to purchase food and clothing, or find a job. Hell, they can’t even get a shower or a haircut or toothpaste or hygiene products. And we aren’t even talking about those with children.

Yes, some of these people find themselves in these dire situations because they may drink too much, or they are lazy and don’t want to work. Some of them might have fallen on hard times where they suffered some debilitating health problem or they lost their job and couldn’t pay their bills. Many others never saw it coming and they are trying to navigate their way to some existence a bit better than where they are right now.

Again I will state that the reasons really don’t matter. No reason is justification for a community to allow this to be the case for fellow human beings. There has to be a system in place to provide shelter and meals, at the very least, for human beings to be taken care of in times like this. Get them safe and then deal with the issues each faces.

And the reason we need to address this societal problem is simple — it’s the right thing to do.

We need all leaders in our community to make this a priority. We need to find a way to do all we can to help. We can’t accept defeat. We can’t justify doing little or nothing — or not enough.

There is so much good going on in our community and it is to be commended. Especially when young people — young professionals, college and high school students — get involved and work hard to raise money to do something that is needed somewhere. Each effort is putting another brick in the community wall.

And each project completed brings awareness, not just to those who work at this every day, but to those who may not have noticed the need is growing so rapidly.

The Irish poet William Butler Yeats, once said, “Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.”

You can interpret that several ways, but I look at it from the point of view a those in need who need friends to do what they can to help.

“Offering a hand up is not a hand-out,” said Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross.

A person I know once said, “Happ it.” What? I said, asking what he meant.

“Make it happen,” he said.

Yeah, happ it.