Altruism Must Be A Year-Round Thing

What would the world be like without the kindly people who see the human faces of misfortune and open their checkbooks?

What would the world be like without people of faith who leave behind middle-class comforts to serve the dying in Calcutta, the homeless in Mexico or the orphans in Romania?

It would be like Romania - everywhere.

This week, The Spokesman-Review published a special section about some area residents who had gone to Romania to help children who live in a decaying orphanage there.

Our readers responded with open hearts. Telephones rang and rang and donations poured in.

What a testimony this is to the kind of community - indeed, to the kind of nation - we are.

Here it is, late October in the nasty phase of political campaigns. Many of us argue heatedly about politicial decisions that may affect how our country cares for its own disadvantaged children.

And yet, in the face of a few Romanian orphans with lice crawling through their hair, these partisan battles dissolve and we become good, caring people who just want to help.

This happens all the time. A fire destroys a family’s home and the people of Spokane line up with donations to lend a hand. A middle-aged man with no insurance needs a heart transplant and strangers hold bake sales to pay the bills.

So here’s the puzzle: How can we translate this wonderful compassion into the more permanent, more organized, day-in, year-out kind of aid that’s needed to help the many disadvantaged people who are around us here, where we live, all the time?

Recently, Congress voted for a fundamental change in the nation’s social safety net. Change was needed; the old ways just weren’t working. Soon, programs focused on handouts will be replaced by programs that emphasize the equipping of recipients for self-sufficiency. The new programs may be more community-based, less bureaucratic. Religious charities - which fan out around our nation and the world to help the needy - will be encouraged, under federal law, to play an even larger role at home.

Can we make our best instincts a year-round thing? Can we give more to charities? Can we accept the need to pay the taxes that fund social service agencies? Can we convert the willingness to write one check into a willingness, for example, to hire a longtime welfare recipient who doesn’t have a particularly flashy resume?

It’s up to us.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board