The new Hope For… campaign by the Langley Advance Times starts this week. If there were ever a time for hope, it’s now.

Because this is Langley, we believe that our hopes will be fulfilled.

The foundational bedrock of the community, is an ability to come together to do good.

This is a community that has volunteerism wound into its DNA.

It’s a place where in 1948, when the largest floods in a generation threatened North Langley, hundreds of people – including teenagers summoned directly from their high school graduation dance – rushed directly to the river to fill sandbags.

It’s the same community where exactly 70 years later, hundreds of high school students were again filling sandbags to protect homes on the Katzie First Nation reserve to protect them from another threatened flood.

We do not forget how to help one another. We pass those lessons along, to new generations. New arrivals come with their own traditions of service, sacrifice, and mutual aid.

Right now, we have been asked to help mostly in ways that are passive. Keeping our distance, staying at home, going out only for necessities have helped B.C. flatten the curve of coronavirus.

That struggle will be difficult and costly, with wage workers and small business owners paying much of the price.

But once we are through to the other side, Langley will again be able to come together, not only physically but as a true community.

We have seen many small but vital examples of people paying it forward, and those will continue and grow. The federal and provincial governments have their vital parts to play, but Langley will thrive because its people want to help support one another.

What we hope for, we can make real, if we work together.

–M.C.

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