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Hicks column: It's a wonderful life ... because of folks like these

Post & Courier - 12/24/2017

We interrupt this bizarre year for a brief moment of Christmas cheer.

Yes, South Carolina, we’ve had our issues recently. There’s an ongoing Statehouse corruption probe, utilities bilking us for millions per month, and a handful of governor candidates running for president of the Confederacy.

And let’s not even get into the fact that old man Potter from Frank Capra’s Bedford Falls is apparently running the country.

But today, they all get a pass - because it’s Christmas Eve.

Instead, let’s focus on some of the good things happening around South Carolina. And there’s no better place to start than the Secretary of State’s annual list of charities that are particularly generous and noble.

The We Care Center in Chapin feeds a lot of people in the Midlands. Every year, the good folks there deliver several hundred-thousand pounds of food to families in Prosperity, Peak, Pomaria and Little Mountain. Churches, businesses, civic clubs and individuals donate their time and money to the center, which also helps people in need pay their utility bills.

If only Congress held such values…

The Christmas is for Kids program has been operating in Gaffney for nearly 30 years. Sponsored by the Gaffney Ledger newspaper, this charity simply collects money through private donations and gives it to less fortunate children in Cherokee County. Then the kids are turned loose for pre-Christmas shopping sprees.

Who says newspapers don’t do anything good? See: Good Cheer Fund, The Post and Courier.

Friends of the Animal Shelter in Aiken recruits foster parents for cats and dogs, and volunteers to help out at the county animal shelter. The group’s primary goal is to make Aiken County a place where no pets are euthanized, so most of its funds pay for a free spay and neuter program.

In Seneca, the Golden Corner Food Pantry provides meals to about 1,500 Oconee County families every month. The food is donated by individuals, local businesses and churches, and distributed by more than 275 volunteers. Every year, more than 1.5 million pounds of food passes through the pantry to folks in need.

Back in 2013, some women in a Florence Bible study group were alarmed by reports that many kids do poorly in school because they’re too hungry to study. They established Help 4 Kids, a nonprofit that provides 1,900 Florence County students with a backpack full of food to take home every Friday afternoon.

JumpStart South Carolina is a Spartanburg recidivism program that uses job training, mentoring and religious teaching to help people released from prison re-adjust to society. The group also offers transitional housing and support services to a segment of the population that often goes ignored … and ends up back in jail.

Meals on Wheels of Horry County is a private, faith-based nonprofit that delivers hot food to the home-bound, elderly, handicapped and terminally ill. Using private donations from Grand Strand residents and businesses, this charity has been operating for more than eight years.

Barely 2 percent of Meals on Wheels’ donations go to overhead, which makes it one of the more efficient programs of its kind in this state (Note: All these groups are distinguished by their low overhead).

In 2011, a group of physicians in Mount Pleasant realized there are thousands of South Carolinians who do not have the proper insurance or can’t afford to have cataract surgery. They began Operation Sight, which has provided more than 262 surgeries to people through donated time and money.

Two Greenville mothers set up the Project Hope Foundation to support children with autism. In a couple of decades, this charity has grown into an expansive program that provides autistic children with classrooms where they can learn with other kids, and other services that help autistic people of any age. That is good work, indeed.

And more than 20 years ago, Dr. Jack McConnell opened a clinic for Hilton Head and Daufuskie Island residents who weren’t getting the health care they needed. Today, the Volunteers in Medicine Clinic on Hilton Head has more than 600 volunteers - including doctors, nurses, dentists and social workers - who donate more than 30,000 patient visits each year. The program has been so successful it has spawned 96 similar clinics around the country.

When it seems like the world’s gone mad, remember there are thousands of people in South Carolina who dish out the holiday spirit every week of the year. All is not lost, not by a long shot.

Merry Christmas.