The temptation to focus on problems sometimes distracts us from seeing how much is going right in our community.
Every week there are celebrations of individual for their achievements; often local politicians get it right and move the community forward (the Service Squamish Initiative being a big one), and everyday, many people work quietly in the background just to make the town a better place.
A chance discussion at the pool one morning offered me a glimpse at the remarkable work being done in Squamish by Squamish Helping Hands Society.
Riun Blackwell, a long-time community volunteer, described himself as "a happy volunteer in the kitchen" when he started with Helping Hands in February 2008. Soon, though, he was tasked with the "opportunity" to develop a food pick up program for the Drop-in Center.
Helping Hands feed two meals per day with an average 40 meals per sitting.
"That's a lot of food," Riun understates, and Helping Hands relies on the generosity of local businesses to source a portion of the food being served.
"We're so grateful for the donations Save-On Foods, Nesters, Starbucks in Tantalus Mall, Squamish and Whistler, and both independent local bakeries who are some of the businesses donating food for the Helping Hand program," Riun says.
But even with the success that the program has had, Riun still sees room for expansion.
"We are developing contacts within the Squamish CAN food group in hope that we may develop increased potential for excess local market garden produce. We envision an expansion of our local pick up and distribution as we become better known."
Last year when it became clear that there was a dire need for food support within the community, Helping Hands answered with direct regular support of families, seniors and youth within Squamish.
They also support a growing number of community programs, which, when possible and appropriate, they supply with take home food.
With the support of council, they've also established a new food distribution centre in an unused municipal building that offers the capacity for temperature controlled and frozen food storage.
There is also dry goods storage and distribution potential, an essential component for nutritious community food support.
Towards this goal Helping Hands hopes to enlist the support of the Salvation Army and soon hopes to have regular deliveries from this generous organization.
According to Riun, the program has been developed and is currently operated by him and Willow Thornhill with direct support and direction from Dennis Bartlett and Ken Pickering.
None of these people, I'm sure, want to see their names in the paper. They've been doing what they've been doing simply because it's what they think is the right thing to do for the community.
But, like all things, they can't do it on their own.
"We need volunteers at the Helping Hands Shelter and in our food distribution center as well as people with vehicles for pick up and delivery of food to develop our service," Riun says.
"I believe this is a very rewarding and worthwhile volunteer opportunity we have developed. Moving boxes full of excess veggies and bread then distributing them in community is very satisfying."
