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Thank you for naming Felicia and Tyronne Champion the Times-Democrat’s Citizens of the Year for 2011.

As a part-time tutor at their family-oriented Victory Transitional Housing Shelter in Bealeton, I’ve been privileged to see up close how their determination, guidance and hard work have brought people and resources together to build the support local families need when facing some of life’s most daunting challenges.

The Champions have created and maintained crucial supports for families in our community. They richly deserve everyone’s recognition and appreciation. I’m grateful for the Times-Democrat’s wisdom in choosing to honor them.

In doing so, I like to think, you are honoring all the pieces of the mosaic of Fauquier County’s underlying social network: the patchwork of community resources that supports families and individuals when they are faced with severe loss — homelessness or hunger, perhaps, debilitating physical or mental illness, criminal violence, or other threats.

This array of human services, in which the Champions play such an important role is an absolutely vital community resource, one easily unrecognized or unappreciated by those who haven’t needed its support.

For that reason alone, your recognition of the Champions is an important service to our community.

Just last Friday, two days after Tyronne Champion appeared on your front page, Felicia Champion and I and a roomful of others working in a broad range of social services met for the January meeting of Fauquier’s Partnership for Community Resources.

Month after month, this open-ended, ever-evolving exchange of news, resources, and other information is exciting, interesting, and hopeful.

From domestic violence, law enforcement, and victim advocates, to dementia, family care giving, and aging; from food banks and Community Action to mental health counselors and child protective services; from homelessness to Hospice, the stress points and most challenging aspects of life in Fauquier County are all represented at what may be our area’s most interesting and important regular meeting.

At least we hope all of these groups are represented, so I want to invite all churches with food pantries and service ministries, all civic organizations with helping programs, all agencies with resources, all individuals with ideas and energy, and all people with a desire to help their neighbors, to come to a Partnership for Community Resources meeting at 10 a.m. on the first Friday of each month, upstairs in the hospital’s Sycamore Room.

The Champions’ Community Touch, Fauquier Habitat for Humanity, S.A.F.E., Fauquier Department of Social Services, Rappahannock-Rapidan Community Services, the Fauquier Sheriff’s Office, Community Action, Aging Together, hospices and personal-care companies, and many, many other organizations and service-oriented businesses — all providing vital human services to families in Fauquier County — are represented at these meetings.

Please join us once a month to help strengthen, sustain, and advance our county’s social safety net and support system.

For many, times are hard economically. For some, times are very hard in other ways, too.

Alzheimer’s and other devastating diseases strike with little warning; violence and crime shatter lives; a loved one’s death leaves us heartbroken and hopeless. A family comfortable in June may be homeless in December; a suddenly single mother may wonder how she’s going to feed her children or who will watch them until she’s home from work.

Members of the PCR work hard to help those in our community who are struggling and suffering. It’s my conviction that the stronger this organization, the more it can support its members’ work, the stronger and healthier we all will be in Fauquier County.

I urge all of you working to meet the needs of those in need to come share your services and ideas and concerns with us at a PCR meeting, the first Friday of each month.

And I hope those of you not directly involved in helping those in need will keep an eye and an ear out for news about the PCR and look for opportunities to jump into the fray.

If you honor what the Champions do, why not join in, and, like them, work to make a positive difference in the life of our community?

Larry Stillwell

Culpeper