Season of Sharing

Every year since 1932, The Oregonian has run a fund-raising campaign to raise money to help people in need at the holidays.

In recent years, the so-called Season of Sharing has featured a Wishbook, published the Sunday before Thanksgiving, to highlight the individuals, families and nonprofit agencies on the receiving end of this charity. I know from experience, having served twice as editor of the Wishbook, that these folks express so much gratitude and humility it makes your heart hurt.

Today, I will join a handful of newsroom colleagues in reviewing the nominees for this year's campaign. Our task: to try to reduce the 53 cases to about half that number, so that reporters can vet the intended recipients and write their stories. It's an enormous challenge. In a way, it's almost like playing God, deciding whom is more worthy than another of the public's assistance. And, of course, they all are.

As you read the nominations, you feel pulled toward the personal stories of perseverance and progress in the face of multiple obstacles: drug-addicted parents, poverty, low educational achievement, abusive husbands or boyfriends (yes, it's always the men). But then you get pulled in another direction by the agencies serving entire groups of people with disabilities, medically fragile children or low-income people living just a thread away from homelessness. And there are so many more: veterans in need of counseling, children in need of mental health services, seniors who can't get out to shop for themselves, etc., etc.

I'm grateful to this year's editor, Amy Wang, for inviting me to participate. I doubt that readers give much thought to the logistics behind each year's Season of Sharing. Suffice to say it takes a small village to pull this off. The newspaper solicits nominations during the summer, convenes a committee to pick the most deserving cases in early September, then assigns reporters and photographers to interview the subjects. Editors and a page designer make it all come together in early November, and a small army of personal shoppers goes out to purchase the items -- be they gas cards or furniture, wheelchairs or school supplies -- in time for Christmas. Newsroom and accounting staff track all the donations, making sure that every penny goes to the recipients and the Oregon Food Bank.

This year, more than ever, it would be nice to see an outpouring of support for these children, teenagers, young mothers, struggling families, lonely seniors and big-hearted social services employees and volunteers who need the community's help. Click here to read more about the Season of Sharing. Click here to see more photos from the 2008 Season of Sharing. And when the Wishbook appears this fall, please consider making a donation.