Helping out during the holiday season is a community effort in Cumberland County. A Christmas Mother committee of 14 leads the effort, but residents, civic organizations and businesses all chip in to do their part. Alice Metts, a lifelong resident of Cumberland, is the committee chairwoman. She has a history of working with youths in the county, first as a social worker in the school system; she currently works with at-risk youths.

Contributions to Operation Blessing International increased by 46 percent last year, with most of the donations non-cash contributions such as surplus food and goods for needy families and disaster victims.

Henry Thomas Diehl died Feb. 11 and Mary Eleanor Wellman Diehl died 15 days later. Couple wed nearly 60 years ‘left together’ Tom and Mary Diehl were born four years apart in the same town but didn’t meet until college. They would have celebrated 60 years of marriage and devotion this summer, if they had not “left together,“ as daughter Mary Kathleen Reichert describes it.

Wiley Hardy Wheat, a Richmond philanthropist, died Sunday after a brief illness. She was 86. Mrs. Wheat was the widow of James C. Wheat Jr., chairman of the board of Wheat, First Securities Inc. Her husband died in 1992. A native of Farmville, Mrs. Wheat had served on the board of the Longwood College Foundation and on the board of trustees of Hampden-Sydney College. She also was past president of the Virginia branch of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America and was appointed by two Virginia governors to the Citizens’ Advisory Council in Furnishing and Interpreting the Executive Mansion.

Au pairs from six countries gathered a week ago to stuff bears for youngsters at VCU Children’s Medical Center. As part of a national effort, Cheryl Kircher, AuPairCare area director, and 20 au pairs gathered at the Short Pump Town Center’s Build-A-Bear Workshop to create and donate bears to 32 children. “For a bunch of adults, we had a lot of fun,“ Kircher said.

The final and largest exhibit mounted by the Virginia Historical Society while Stuart G. “Punky” Christian Jr. was president of its board of trustees was, fittingly, a 50th-anniversary retrospective about life on the home front during World War II. Mr. Christian missed some of that life, going ashore at Normandy the day after D-Day as a communications sergeant with the 329th Regimental Combat Team.

For all of its conspicuous consumption, America has a firm foundation in generosity, especially during the holiday season. At a relatively early age, we recognize that it’s better to give than to receive.

More than 90,000 meals were donated to the Central Virginia Foodbank during Cox Radio Richmond’s two-week “Feed Richmond” food drive that ended Nov. 20, 2008. During the drive, donations could be made online at feedrichmond.com, K95country.com, 965klr.com, mix1037.com, and y101rocks.com; at all 15 area Kroger grocery store locations; and at First Community Bank branches in Richmond and Emporia.

It takes a special group to put a feel-good face on a social ill, but the Richmond chapter of the Continental Societies has plenty of practice. It has been putting some of the city’s least fortunate school kids into new winter coats for more than two decades.

Drew Scholes felt guilt and anxiety during the first Sunday in November when church leaders at Crewe Christian Church Disciples of Christ passed out $20 to each person in attendance. He and others were challenged to take the money—$760 in all—grow it and return it yesterday. While Scholes donates time and money to causes, he felt guilty over not tithing.

Hundreds of people set out from two malls south of the river yesterday morning, running and walking 5 kilometers in support of two charity events, one established, one new. The 19th Jingle Bell Run/Walk was the larger event, and the colder. Five hundred runners and 350 walkers—many of them clad in Santa hats, reindeer antlers and jingle bells—fought off the morning chill outside the Stony Point Fashion Park to raise money for the Arthritis Foundation.