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By TOM JACKSON
Published: Jun 15, 2006
Subject: How To Keep Christmas Spirit All Year Long
How To Keep Christmas Spirit All Year Long
Bob Loring, Santa's elf-for-all-seasons, is at this very moment - at the risk of mixing metaphors - an east Pasco tropical wave gathering strength and, with any kind of favorable conditions, momentum.
At hand is the Fifth Annual Congress of The American Dream, scheduled for Wednesday at Saint Leo University. Expected to gather for the daylong seminar are folks much like Loring and his tireless co-conspirator, Jessica Hawkins White, folks devoted to identifying causes of, relieving and, ideally, ending the cycle of poverty that consumes certain pockets of the east county.
The goal, as ever, is to spread the spirit of Loring's principal avocation - the East Pasco Marine Corps Reserve's Toys for Tots yuletide drive - throughout the year. In short, Loring hopes to someday put the program out of business.
OK, it's a pipe dream. Pie in the sky. A fool's errand. Jesus himself foretold that the poor always will be with us. That hardly consigns us to lives of ignorance, bliss or neglect where our hardscrabble neighbors are concerned. Not if we are to embrace John F. Kennedy's slight amending of the Christ principle, in which he summoned his generation and its descendants on Earth to do God's work, "which surely must be our own."
Ending Poverty's Cycle
To that end, the symbiotic team of Loring and White, assistant student activities director at Pasco-Hernando Community College, has since 2001 planned to maximize individual aid and community boot-strapping where need has woven itself into the fabric of life.
The inspiration was the fact that, as he expanded the reach of East Pasco's Toys for Tots campaign, Loring realized two important things: Many of the same parents returned year after year; and virtually nothing is as important to a mom or dad as seeing their offspring happy and hopeful.
Given the abundance of subjects apparently willing to have their lives improved, and Loring's experience in community building on Florida's southeast coast, it was almost inevitable that the Marine Corps veteran would turn Pasco east of U.S. 41 into a vast sociological laboratory, with optimistic experiments in purposeful neighborliness conducted by The American Dream team's loose coalition of agencies and volunteers, as well as Saint Leo University and the community college.
Five years on, the congress has seen inspiring successes and distressing failures - the collapse of a much-counted-on mentoring program through the university and PHCC was a particular blow - each contributing to refinement of immediate goals and long-term ambitions.
It's Up To You
Key in identifying families under stress has been the Pasco school district, which has worked closely for years with Toys for Tots. It's appropriate, then, that the keynote speaker for this year's congress is Superintendent Heather Fiorentino, who is expected to describe ways the district, schools and agencies can improve their cooperation.
The Congress of the American Dream's goal remains constant: give momentum to the yuletide spirit by motivating private sentiment, the fount of all meaningful generosity. What can you do? Show up at Saint Leo Wednesday morning. Follow the signs. Find a seat. Open your heart.
The rest is easier than hanging mistletoe.
Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219.
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