If CNN only knew. If King 5 TV just dug a little deeper. If the “big papers” and “news moguls” had any idea, they’d see that North Kitsap’s support of Blaze the firedog — while special — is nothing out of the ordinary for the good people of this area.

When someone is in need.

We give.

We always have and we always will.

For the past several months, this paper has been full of giving.

Kids donating toys, time, talent. Families filling shoeboxes, Kingstonites dressing like Santa and flying to Russia to cheer up orphans, countless food drives at schools, businesses and grocery stores. Bellringer fund raisers, auctions, giving trees… the list goes on and on and on.

Yet, these worthy causes have escaped the eye of the state and national media — how can this be?

Frankly, it doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that people around here care about good causes. Whether its providing food and clothing to needy families or helping a dalmatian through a rough time, we always seem to answer the call.

Residents of North Kitsap don’t shy away from hurdles, we sail over them. The bigger the hurdle the bigger the effort. The larger the effort, the more tremendous the success.

We don’t like to fail.

But even more, we don’t like the thought of hungry and unhappy neighbors during the giving season. So, we do what we can.

Whether its a can of food or a truckload.

One dollar or a hundred.

A single toy or a bag full.

The people of North Kitsap do it all. And we don’t do it for the praise, the pats on the back or the headlines. We do it for the simple knowledge that we are making someone’s life a little better. Someone we never met and maybe never will cross paths with will smile because of our generosity.

Blaze probably can’t determine which of us helped him out and which of us didn’t. The needy in our community really can’t either.

Nonetheless, all of those who receive do so with the knowledge that someone out there cares about their happiness and health.

And while Blaze may be getting national attention, we should all feel great about our holiday giving and our ongoing efforts to help.

We suppose those CNN news anchors could try to do a segment on the ongoing giving spirit of North Kitsap — but we’re certain that they’d be running out of video tape well before they got even a fraction of the way through all the stories.

Let’s keep it up.