Event this Friday shows the best of our community

By Mike Fak

[June 11, 2008]  Sometimes this community and the people within are like a precocious child. We get aggravated with what they (we) are doing or not doing, but in the end they (we) do those special things just so right that a person can't help but love them even more.

We as a community have our faults, our failings and our failures, to be sure. And then again we do some things as a population that make us all rise above our shortcomings and show the world that there is unbelievable good, caring and sharing in our collective soul.

No more so is this redemption more evident than when a fundraising event to help another is held. It is then that we find the heart and the soul of this community.

We watch and participate; we work hard to collect and contribute; and then we give the fruits of our efforts to someone that in most instances many of us don't know, never met and never will.

But that isn't what's important. What is important is that we take upon ourselves the effort and the strength to help someone who at the moment needs not only the good Lord's help, but our help too.

It is at these times, these moments, when this population rises above itself and says to the world, "We care. We give. We help."

Friday at the Knights of Columbus Hall, another special and important fundraiser will be held for Michelle Conrady-Brown to help her in her fight against Lou Gehrig's disease. At this event I will bear witness again to one of the most amazing things I have had the privilege to witness in my life. I will see people coming to try for just a moment to make someone else feel a little better about their plight. I will see them leave feeling a little better about themselves.

I have been blessed to have witnessed this circle of caring and sharing on many occasions, and I am thankful for each and every one I have had the opportunity to observe. They strengthen my belief in the good of mankind in a time when so much tells me that the world has become cold and selfish and uncaring.

I could spend a moment here asking all of you to help and to contribute, but I already know you will. It is what you do. It is this caring for others that humbles me so very much when I call this my home and all of you my neighbors.

May God bless not only Michelle and her family, but also all of you. You are the best among us.

[By MIKE FAK, managing editor, Lincoln Daily News]

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• The constant companion: Michelle Conrady-Brown's life with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease)