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This week's announcement that a local couple is giving $1 million to improve early childhood development in the Beasley neighbourhood has a precious significance.
Yes, it will create new programs and opportunities at the Beasley Community Centre. The donation will get children better prepared for kindergarten, helping them learn to read and write. It will provide a speech, hearing, vision and dental clinic for kids who have never known one. And the money means more local residents, especially newcomers to Canada, will learn to make good, affordable meals that will sustain the health of young families who represent the future of our city.
But this week's donation also reinforces the sense that more and more people in Hamilton understand that attacking the causes of poverty -- especially childhood poverty -- is a core civic duty for every one of us.
The couple that anonymously contributed this money didn't do it for the fame. All we know is that they are retired educators who read that the federal government's cancelled child care plan meant Hamilton would lose 1,400 planned child care spaces. They saw a need in their midst, and could afford to invest in it. They directed that their money be spent on early childhood development.
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In a flawed world, surely these kinds of homegrown efforts indicate a proud community that cares for its own, and takes on the hard slogging which is the price of a better future.
- reprinted from the Hamilton Spectator