A Hallmark movie Christmas event in Aberdeen — and a question about SD’s priorities all year
Aberdeen’s 2023 Christmas experienced a special holiday story. The heartwarming event was a clear reminder of what the best of Christmas can be when good people do good things.
The way things developed led to much joy for many children and much satisfaction and community pride. It was a simply wonderful story worthy of a Hallmark movie.
On reflection, this also raises some questions about ourselves and our neighbors.
Here’s what happened:
Safe Harbor family violence shelter (seen above in an image from the United Way of Northeastern SD website) encourages Aberdeen-area parents who lack enough money for children’s gifts to submit wish lists. Local folks respond by picking up a request and shopping for the items. This year, as Christmas neared, there was concern all the requests would not be met. This was noted by a posting on social media and the response exploded.
Over $15,000 in mostly small donations poured in for volunteers immediately and more dollars went directly to the shelter. A group of Christmas angels spent hours doing the shopping. All the requests were handled and money left over went to other similar efforts in the city.
What a wonderful story and what a self-satisfying thing for everyone in Aberdeen. Generous efforts helping others with no strings. Happy children, grateful parents and something to build on for the future.
Justifiable good feelings and satisfied smiles have spread through Aberdeen as this has become known. Warm thoughts about our community and the people who live here. Nothing can detract from the positive feeling about this.
Nevertheless, this thought pops up: Are these well-intentioned people representative of Aberdeen voters? How does one who feels a personal impulse to donate to needy families reconcile that with voting for officials who refuse to support programs that would help those families?
Federal food assistance? Nope. “Too challenging to administer.”
Medicaid expansion? Delayed for years for no good reason.
School meals for all? Nope. Minnesota can do it, but we can’t.
Fixing our regressive tax set-up? Be serious.
Using federal housing money wisely? We’re still waiting.
This list could be really long.
Aberdeen and the entire state keeps sending those who oppose these ideas to Pierre year after year. Do the folks who we properly admire for their personal generosity blank that out when thoughts about abortion, or guns, or immigration, or homophobia, or fear of any change overwhelm their generous nature on Election Day?
Or, are these perhaps two different groups of people?
We celebrate this incredibly uplifting Christmas event with the understanding that our government in Pierre has the resources to do more to help, too.
Mike Levsen is a former mayor of Aberdeen and a regular contributor to The South Dakota Standard.
