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Need knows no season

North Island Gazette editor J.R. Rardon uses this week's editorial to praise local generosity.

Having just completed raising more than $40,000 to aid fellow North Islanders with the Gazette Hamper Fund drive last month, you’d think local residents would find it hard to afford giving in January.

Home fires last weekend that displaced two Port Hardy families have proven otherwise.

Before they had even returned from a trip to survey their trailer home that burned in Cedar Heights  Friday, Doug Lissey and Junlyn Pascua and their daughters were being offered a month’s rent-free stay by good Samaritan Amanda Murphy.

And Murphy, who did not know the family before the fire, is also leading a donation drive for household goods and clothing for the couple’s daughters, aged 11 and 13.

The Glen Lyon Inn provided pillows and bedding, and Hardy Buoys Smoked Fish, Pascua’s employer, contributed a bed it had in storage.

“I’m never surprised how the North Island steps up,” said Sandra Boyd of Hardy Buoys. “That’s what we do.”

The community did it again after Larry and Barb Bruner and their three great-grandchildren were burned out of their home the next night, bringing clothing, shoes and even hot cocoa to the family in their motel room.

Somehow, North Islanders can always afford to help their neighbours. Indeed, we can’t afford not to.