Another tumultuous twelve months — a year that began with an insurrection in the nation’s capital, paused in the middle for an all-too-brief break from major coronavirus worries, and ended with a fast-spreading variant called Omicron — is now a wrap.
What happened on Vashon in 2021 is a story we have told, week by week, with deep gratitude to the many volunteers of our pandemic response team who managed for yet another year to keep us safe and well informed.
Without the tireless efforts of VashonBePrepared, the Emergency Operations Committee (EOC), the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and our Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), ours would be a very different history at this point.
We also salute the heroic work of those in our social services and first-responder organizations: Comunidad Latina de Vashon; Vashon Food Bank; Vashon Youth & Family Services; Interfaith Council to Prevent Homelessness; St. Vincent de Paul Vashon; Vashon Senior Center; DOVE Project; Vashon Care Network; Vashon Island Growers; the Backbone Campaign, Indivisible Vashon; the Whole Vashon Project; Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust, Vashon Eagles; Voice of Vashon and its Emergency Alert System.
When you were needed, you stepped up.
To everyone who works in any way toward the environmental good of Vashon, to all who tend to our island soil and our surrounding waters to preserve them for all the creatures which inhabit them, we thank you.
So many on our island work toward the public good — think of the brave first responders of Vashon Island Fire & Rescue, the teachers, nutritional workers and support staff of Vashon School District, and the staff members of many smaller, private schools on Vashon. Kudos should also go out to all who help Partners in Education (PIE) and Vashon Schools Foundation.
Our elected officials — the brave souls who step up to serve as board members of our public agencies, are owed a debt of gratitude. Their jobs have been so difficult, once again, in 2021.
Our island’s cultural organizations also made Vashon a better place in 2021 — what a sweet relief it has been to be able to come together and hear music, see plays and celebrate the talent in our community. Thank you to Vashon Events; Vashon Island Visual Artists; VALISE Gallery, Vashon Center for the Arts; Vashon Heritage Museum; Open Space for Arts & Community; Vashon Theatre; Drama Dock, Take A Stand Productions, and Vashon Repertory Theatre company for your endless creative energy and drive.
We all play a part somehow in this web of community. As Fred Rogers, host of the long-running show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” told his young audience members, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
So here’s to the helpers and all those who labor on in these ongoing hard times. Many things went right in 2021, and each one of them was because a caring community made it so.
Here at The Beachcomber, we are also grateful to the many talented contributors who helped us keep our newspaper intensely local. We look forward to 2022, and new stories of island resilience.
