Our schools — our educators — are being asked to do so much for our children today. While lawmakers meddle and standards are set, technology changes and educational theories evolve, those working in our schools do their best to provide a quality education for our students and prepare them for the world once they have graduated. They also feed, clothe, counsel, find resources for and even help find homes for students. In extreme examples, there are teachers in our region who have personally purchased furniture for a student who needed to be placed in a new home.

Most of the rest of us can’t imagine carrying that kind of burden, because we aren’t the kinds of people who had the heart and mind to become teachers in the first place.

But it takes a village, and even with the goals set by those establishing the St. Marys High School Clothing Closet, there was a need for community support. They found it in the form of volunteers from groups such as the Old Lady Gang — a group of retirees — and support from Neighborhood Network, Waverly Church of Christ, the Saint Marys Correctional Center and Jail, Pleasants County Commission, Hensler Town and Country Market and many individuals.

SMHS Clothing Closet organizers called the project a “beacon of support” for the young people it serves. And it, in turn, is supported by those in the community dedicated to making sure our educators aren’t carrying this burden alone.

Thank goodness we live in a region where such compassion — and ability to take action — does not waver.