Healthy Families a godsend for city

Published 12:00 am Friday, May 20, 2005

Raising a child is never easy. Raising one’s first child is even harder. But raising one for the first time alone? Borderline impossible.

That’s why it’s good that Suffolk’s newest parents have organizations like Healthy Families to give them a little help when they’re in the greatest need.

On Wednesday, seven mothers and daughters made up the organization’s fourth-ever graduating class. For no fee, Healthy Families representatives have gone out of their way to make certain that the children grow up healthy, and educated the mothers on what to do and what to expect while raising a kid.

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Those are the type of people that we need more of, not just in Suffolk, but everywhere. Just like the motorcyclists that raised about $5,000 for Martina Natoli at the Ivor racing tracks last Sunday and the golfers that brought in about $50,000 for another lung transplant last week at the Sleepy Hole Golf Course, there’s more and more people these days that just like to give of themselves to help others, oftentimes people they’ve never met before.

Far too often in the newspaper business, the front page is full of bad news. Murders, rapes, assaults and other dark spots of people. We’ve seen all that on the front page of the News-Herald in the last few months alone. But checking out today’s front page story about Healthy Families, there’s a message of hope. There’s a story of triumph. It’s a feel-good, people-helping-people piece. And that’s what we need more of (it’s not a new thing, either – look at the Times Past to read about a cancer fund drive in Suffolk that roared past its goal nearly six decades ago).

That’s what editors and reporters really prefer writing. Those are the ones that make reporters want to go out and find more and more of. Hopefully, we’ll continue to see more examples of projects like Healthy Families in Suffolk and beyond.