Like any community, North Kitsap is a community of people from different cultures and different faiths. And yet, as members of this community, there is much that binds us together as one.

We mourned together this year, and as a new year dawns we carry with us the memory of those the community lost to homicide and suicide.

We struggled to pay bills together. Kitsap County’s unemployment rate dipped to 6.2 percent in October, and Poulsbo’s businesses are having a good year — sales tax revenue generated in Poulsbo is the highest in at least five years. Yet, North Kitsap Fishline reports that as 700 households moved off its client list and on to self-sufficiency, “they were replaced by 600 more,” Fishline executive director Mary Nader said in an earlier interview. “People are getting jobs, but they’re not living-wage jobs. Three-fourths of the jobs [available] are minimum-wage jobs.”

We gave to help our neighbors. Among the vehicles we used: the Poulsbo Lions/Raab Foundation Bellringer Fund and ShareNet Neighbor Aid.

We saw need and responded. A coalition has opened a severe-weather shelter in Kingston. Churches continue to open their doors for community meals every week all year long. Hundreds of families received food for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year thanks to the Poulsbo Lions/Raab Foundation Bellringer Fund, North Kitsap Fishline, St. Vincent de Paul, and local churches.

We witnessed incredible generosity. A Poulsbo resident donated 2.3 acres in northeast Poulsbo for the construction of transitional homes for survivors of domestic violence who are charting new courses for their lives. The Poulsbo/North Kitsap Rotary Club and the YWCA of Kitsap County are heading the project; construction is expected to begin in June 2016.

There are many more examples: Food drives organized by businesses and neighborhoods. Volunteers staffing emergency shelters. Service clubs doing what they do to meet health and social needs in our communities.

As we’ve seen this year — indeed, as we see year after year — each of us matters. We each have the capacity to make sure no one falls through the cracks. When times are tough, that’s how we survive together.

Yes, our communities are comprised of people of different cultures and different faiths, but we all share one thing in common: Commitment to make tomorrow better.

We wish you all the blessings of the season, and a happy and healthy 2015.