Living up to our reputation to do the right thing

The people who live in small-town America have a huge reputation to live up to.

A reputation built on self-sufficiency.

A reputation built by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and getting the job done.

A reputation earned by holding out a helping hand until there is no one left to help.

A reputation forged on the principle of the Golden Rule; of doing the right thing; of seeing a need and then meeting that need.

The reputation first earned by the generation that came to claim and tame this wild land has expanded with each successive generation. There are the stories of those who endured the Dust Bowl years and the Great Depression and of those who helped comfort the bereaved and rebuild the river valley following the Flood of 1935. Through the years, whether by flood, drought or fire, the hands of those who endured and those who helped bring everyone through the storms, polished that sterling reputation, creating a mirror that reflected the generosity of neighbors and the self-sacrifice of friends, inspiring the next generation to do all that they could do in their time.

We're not done yet.

The latest no-holds-barred effort to make a difference, one meal at a time, kicks off Thursday at 2:30 p.m., mountain time, at Crossroads Wesleyan Church in Imperial, Nebraska. Volunteers from Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado will arrive at regularly scheduled intervals to package 225,000 meals, over a three-day period, to be distributed by Feed My Starving Children, wherever there is a need.

"If you would have told me when we first started that we could raise enough money to prepare 225,000 meals I would have asked you what you were smoking," Richard Banks said with a laugh Tuesday afternoon. Chairman of Southwest Nebraska Meals for God's Children, Banks has been instrumental in organizing the Mobile Pack Event through Feed My Starving Children in Minnesota.

Raising more than enough funds for this pack, Banks indicated that they have already reserved a Mobile Pack event for the third week of July 2012 and will be assisting with a Mobile Pack event in McCook next March.

"The bottom line is, we're doing this to feed the children," Banks stressed. "And to give God the glory. He has promised that if we are obedient to him, he will honor that, and he has certainly honored us."

If those honors can be counted, start with the nearly 1,100 people signed up and ready to start packing and then keep counting. The generous people of Southwest Nebraska, Northwest Kansas and Eastern Colorado continue to reinforce and polish our communal reputation.

About the response, the generosity, the people -- all Banks could say was, "Absolutely phenomenol. To God be the glory."