Publisher’s Notebook

• Malibu Giving As Good As It Gets •

ANNE SOBLE

OK Malibuites, let’s show all of the loudmouthed critics who love to broadly paint the people of our community as narcissistic, greedy hypocrites who are ravaging the coastal waterways and engaging in terrorist activity to keep visitors away from local beaches how wrong they are about most of us by helping all of the Malibu holiday food and toy drives to exceed all expectations.
Whether these efforts are part of individual or group projects at Malibu High School or other school campuses, congregation membership drives at local churches, or corporate undertakings in bank offices, supermarkets, or shopping center malls, we all should make a concerted effort to help fill the containers that have been set out many times over.
On the one hand, it’s easy to deprecate a sense of social need that is seasonal in nature. and say that doing good and sharing only during the holidays downplays the need to do this year-round and make it part of each of our daily lives. On the other, seasonal giving could be the first step that leads to wider contagion of generosity.
Those of us who are fortunate should do all that we can for those who are less fortunate, while striving to build a society where fortunate is the norm. This is a tenet in every concept of social order, whether embedded in philosophy, or religion, or both, even those orders that senselessly wage war against each other.
While a Christmas toy is no substitute for year-round shelter and nutrition, as well as a sense of personal safety and an opportunity for education, it hopefully expands the awareness of the giver that there is so much more that each of us can do. It serves as a reminder that shelter, nutrition and well-being are hallmarks of an advanced society where whims of DNA are not predeterminants of survival.
Each time we enjoy the bright lights and holiday colors at the Malibu Country Mart, the Malibu Lumber Yard, Point Dume Village and other favorite local venues, we can bring a donation that might turn out to be the only gift some child receives. In the process of sharing something material, we share ourselves and show the naysayers that there’s much more to the people of Malibu than trite stereotypes.