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Frankly, it sounds almost too pat, like the fake (at least, we all assumed) “human fund” on a Seinfeld episode, or the real “Foundation for a Better Life” — you may have seen the ads, ubiquitous on some local channels, with the boy playing the piano in a concert hall (“Encouragement, pass it on”) or the youngster trudging through freshly poured concrete (“Patience, pass it on”).

We get it if people feel a bit skeptical when someone writes about the Luzerne County Cares Commission. So go ahead, take a moment and snark it up. “Ooohh, Luzerne County Cares! Be still my heart!” “Did you hear? Luzerne County Cares. Not!” “I wish Luzerne County cared about my taxes always going up!”

The truth is, we need an idea like this, perhaps more now than in decades. We wallow in hyper-partisanship from the national to the local level so much that people seem to have genuinely forgotten what the words “compromise” and “common ground” mean — and how important they have been to the success of a nation built not a a homogeneous people, but as a unified idea.

We continue to endure countless problems thanks to the worst pandemic in a century. People dying alone, funerals that can’t be big enough for families and friends to share their grief. Economic hardship that, for many, can rival the Great Depression. Jobs disappearing long enough that they may never come back. Intermittent shortages of everything from coins to toilet paper.

We see schools struggle to remain open safely even in “hybrid modes” that only teach some of the students in person some of the time, and we see the effort at remote learning expose the myriad technological inequities in our area and our nation. We watch as sporting events are held, then cancelled, then held again. Or more exactly we don’t watch, as we sit frustrated we can’t form a crowd of camaraderie in the bleachers.

If ever there was a good time to for something called the “Cares Commission,” this is it.

And from the story by staff writer Jennifer Learn-Andes in Tuesday’s paper, the commission — formed in August — seems very much to have its collective heart in the right place.

It helped identify an easily overlooked problem: Children staying at the Kirby Family House in Wilkes-Barre have no Wi-Fi internet access, forcing them to walk elsewhere to do homework for virtual instruction.

The commission is launching a food and clothing drive, and working on connecting those in need of services with those who provide them.

The latter is an ongoing and pervasive issue in our area even in better times. We have a lot of agencies and non-profits able and ready to help with different issues, from hunger to addiction to health care access. But they struggle to connect to those who would best benefit from what they offer.

Perhaps more important, with the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, more opportunities have been created to help the growing number of people in need of support. The story cited the Healthy MOMS (Maternal Opiate Medical Support) program from the Scranton-Based Wright Center for Community Health, now available in Luzerne County to provide addiction recovery support to women who are pregnant or have a child under age 2.

A Cares Commission? Yes, please. It’s time to do a lot less judging, and a lot more caring.

— Times Leader