Community Kudos: the Safe and Sane edition

Another Independence Day is in the books, much too quickly as it turns out, falling midweek as it did. But that just means we get to have two really short work weeks to open the month instead of one long one.

Count your blessings where you can.

Unfortunately we were unable to spend a whole a lot of time at this year’s Freedom Fest — deadline beckoned — but we want to kick off this week’s community kudos with nods to the Imperial Chamber of Commerce, KXO radio, Imperial Valley College and the various public agencies and private businesses involved in helping pull this event off every year. It’s a great event for families, and this time of year, those are few and far between.

For those families that elected to keep their July 4 celebrations closer to home, there were 16 fireworks stands doing business in Safe and Sane fireworks around the county. If we’re not mistaken, most, if not all of them were operated by local non-profits raising money that they in turn put back into the community.

Membership in some of these groups — Lions and Kiwanis come to mind — isn’t what it used to be, as fewer and fewer young adults have been stepping up to fill in, not just locally, but nationwide. So we think kudos are in order for the volunteers who braved the heat and helped man these booths over the past several days. There are a lot of people is this community who have benefited from the efforts of these organizations.

It didn’t attract quite the attendance of Freedom Fest, and unfortunately, due to a misunderstanding, it didn’t happen on the day it was originally planned; nevertheless, we want to extend kudos to the Hilton Smith, Marlene Thomas and other African-American community leaders involved in organizing June 30’s Juneteenth celebration at Desert Trail RV Park in El Centro. The significance of Juneteenth is that it marks the day — June 19, 1865 — slavery was officially ended in this country. Unfortunately, it had to be abolished by force, and worse yet, the prejudice and arrogance that helped give birth to that vile institution are in no short supply today.

That’s why it’s important for this country remember and acknowledge its screw-ups without necessarily becoming bogged down in them. Doing this keeps us humble while still allowing us to move forward to more admirable accomplishments.