To the editor:

Thank you for the story about the struggles of Helping Hand to address the needs of our community by supplying financial and other aid to folks who are trying to make ends meet. As our county and state budgets — and our own personal budgets — take hit after hit, agencies like Helping Hand try to fill in the gaps.

Last holiday season, newly aware of Helping Hand’s need, I asked my family members to give donations to Helping Hand instead of buying me something. I will do the same thing this year. I invite you, my friends and neighbors, to consider this alternative to the annual gift-exchange we traditionally enjoy. It gave me a better sense of the Giving Season than my usual frantic scramble to buy things that don’t last.

Another alternative would be to do both: give a donation to Helping Hand in your loved one’s name and buy a gift here locally, to give help also to our struggling businesses.

Either alternative will make us feel better about what we are doing about the economic crises we face.

Rev. Elizabeth “Kit” Ketcham

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Whidbey Island