One season passes and another jumps into full speed.
The high part of the tourist season, a time for many operators to make hay while the sun shines, has ended in Parksville Qualicum Beach. It is our observation that a new season is upon us, and it has nothing to do with the weather or the fall equinox or the beginning of the hockey season. (The latter is something we are very excited about, but that's a ramble for another time, perhaps another place in the paper.)
No, the season of giving has started, and there's no place that has more giving people per capita than this region.
Tonight at the Bayside, at least three people, including NEWS Publisher Peter McCully, volunteer-extraordinaire Joan LeMoine former NEWS columnist Dr. Neill Neill, will shave their heads to raise money for cancer research. It's part of what promises to be an uplifting and emotional night, as the Tour De Rock riders come through town and people share their experiences with cancer and the people it has attacked.
This event is just the start of the giving season in Parksville Qualicum Beach. And we're not ready to call it the Christmas season — for goodness sake, we haven't even hit Thanksgiving — but certainly many events in the final stretches of the planning phase are related to the yule tide.
We urge readers to get involved. There are many events for which you can volunteer, many good projects that put food on the tables of the hungry, coats on the backs of children who are cold.
Some long-standing events that were important in terms of helping the needy, were cancelled last year. In some cases, organizers cited a lack of volunteers.
That can happen. If the same people are doing the same amount of work year after year, volunteers can burn out. We understand.
We would hope that last year was but a blip on the chart, an anomaly in the great history of selflessness in the Parksville Qualicum Beach region.
If you took last year off, fair enough, you likely deserved it. Time to get back at it people, and an even better time for new people to step forward to continue the great, and important, tradition of giving in our communities. — Editorial by John Harding