Hope: Signed, sealed and delivered by a community that cares.

Byline: Bob Welch The Register-Guard

Like Fern Ridge Lake at this time of year, my reservoir of optimism is drawing down.

The Amish murders. The Foley follies. The "another-Oregonian-dies-in-Iraq" headlines.

Then, from an odd place: hope.

Hope stacked, eyeball-high, in Becky Schenck's living room in the form of school supplies in homemade fabric bags. On Tuesday, those bags will be loaded onto a truck and ultimately shipped to kids in Darfur who know far more than I do about hopelessness.

Hope rising from a community that learned of a need, rolled up its sleeves and started doing what we all wish our government would offer more of: stuff that makes the world a better place instead of a scarier, power-bent place.

Hope sent special delivery from a Florence woman who donated 1,200 pencils to help kids caught in the crossfire of violence. Offered from businesses - even "big box" places people love to hate - that gave cut-rate deals for school supplies. And contributed by the kids at Camp Creek's Vacation Bible School who donated a week's "offering," $450, much of it in coins.

Remember last July? The Humanitarian Aid Committee of the Lane County Darfur Coalition challenged us: 1,000 school kits. It seemed like an odd request, yes, but that was the item most in demand at the displacement camps, according to the Mennonite Central Committee, one of the few agencies still in a country ravaged by genocide.

The kits were a way of making a kid in a refugee camp think: Someone out there cares about me. But would anyone respond to the coalition's challenge to affirm those kids?

After The Register-Guard reported the Darfur challenge, the phones of Schenck and fellow committee member Polly Ashworth started ringing with the ceaselessness of Salvation Army Santas. "Quilting stores, churches, teachers, fabric stores - all wanting to get involved and help," says Ashworth. "People are looking for leadership."

And, clearly, responding when seeing it. Janet Stevens, deputy editor of The Bulletin in Bend, caught wind of the effort and challenged Central Oregon readers. "It caught people's imaginations," she says. "Here's something people can actually do to help."

Months later, Stevens personally delivered 220 kits to Schenck that Bulletin readers had put together.

Beyond such geographic teamwork, an 83-year-old retired physician from Eugene teamed up with his neighbors. He sewed; they filled the bags with supplies. Catholic churches put together kits for a Mennonite-sponsored relief effort. "The response from churches was great," says Schenck.

Looking Glass's teen mothers sewed bags. A neighbor of Schenck's, after asking about a Darfur poster she had, said he couldn't sew but reached into his wallet and handed her a $100 bill.

A woman down the street assembled 100 bags and returned them - with fresh-baked cookies for Schenck and other hard-working organizers.

Some took matters into their own hands - literally. Because she had no sewing machine, a retired surgeon from Alaska hand-stitched 25 bags herself.

In all, the group received $25,000 in donations, bags and supplies - and an estimated 1,000 hours of volunteer time.

The result? Four times the number of kits they'd hoped to get. Four thousand. "Amazing," says David Martin, material resource manager for the Mennonite Central Committee in Akron, Pa.

"We've been amazed and humbled by people's generosity," says Schenck.

So have I. Regardless of the insanity out there, it's reassuring that a grass-roots group can ask for help, and three months later fill a living room with a sort of hand-stitched hope.

What it says is what you wish those with far more power could say:

We care about other people.

Donations can be sent to the Lane County Darfur Coalition, P.O. Box 50511, Eugene, OR 97405.