Editorial: Spreading the joy

It’s that time of year again.

The holiday season has arrived, and The Home Reporter and Brooklyn Spectator will once again be collecting toys and non-perishable food items to be donated to a worthy cause – Reaching Out Community Services, which is based in Bensonhurst, and runs a food pantry utilized by more than 5,300 people a month, as well as putting on a big party  for kids in need, Operation Christmas Smiles, to be held, this year, on December 21.

Toys should be new and unwrapped, and can be suitable for either young or older children. There  will be approximately 600 kids attending the holiday party, and the goal is to put a smile on the face of every child who attends

Donations can be dropped off at The Home Reporter, 9733 Fourth Avenue. Toys will be accepted until noon on Thursday, December 19. Nonperishable food items will be accepted until noon on Monday, December 23.

So please, as you go about with your Christmas cheer, help us bring some holiday spirit to the children and families in need right in our community.

 

ON OUR TRANSPORTATION WISH LIST

            Recently, the MTA held a hearing at which local elected officials testified to try, one more time, to get transit officials to restore the B37 bus’s full route.

While delighted that the authority has decided to bring the bus back in 2014, providing additional transportation options to those who relied on the Third Avenue bus to travel locally as well as to downtown Brooklyn, officials and activists would like to see the MTA bring the route back in its entirety, not end it at Barclays Center where commuters would then need to transfer to another bus or a subway to get where they are going.

That’s not easy for many commuters – the elderly or people with disabilities, for example – which is why advocates have been fighting for the bus’s restoration since it was axed in 2010 in the midst of the MTA’s budget crunch.

It is taking long enough to bring back the B37; the MTA should do it right.

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