Opportunities to help this holiday season

Talk about it

These are difficult times for a lot of people. More and more of us know friend or neighbors who have lost a job or who have lost their homes. Others struggle to pay the bills every month. Many are focused on providing for their own families this holiday season, and there seems to be less time than ever to think about helping others who have things even tougher.

There are plenty of opportunities to help, though. And doing something to benefit others doesn't have to mean putting a significant strain on your own bank account.

Plenty of people are doing their part locally. On Friday, students at Rosemount High School will turn over the donations they've brought in this year for local holiday toy drives. In other years the school has been able to collect significant numbers of toys to help make families' holidays better. Later Friday night, RHS students will step forward with another effort to help others. Junior Shelby Cooper will lead a group of friends and fellow students through Rosemount neighborhoods to sing old-fashioned Christmas carols and collect donations for the local food shelf. Last year, Cooper and her friends collected 15 grocery bags full of donations. This year, with even more students involved, they hope to do better. And they expect to have a great time doing it.

That's important. Helping others doesn't have to be a chore. Cooper and her fellow carolers have fun, they bring a bit of Christmas joy to the homes they visit and their donations will help a local family have a better Christmas dinner. It's an effort that works out well for everyone involved.

Even in hard times, it's possible to make someone else's Christmas a little merrier. Rosemount residents have always come through in the past, and we expect they will again.

Tags: opinion, editorial