Doing the right thing isn’t always easy.

More times than not, doing the right thing is downright hard.

Many in our community are experiencing this old adage firsthand as evacuees from the path of Hurricane Katrina join our community.

People are opening their homes to strangers and extended family members.

Churches are feeding the hungry and clothing those in need.

Schoolteachers and administrators are stretching to help displaced students from the Gulf Coast in classrooms already filled to capacity.

The task before them was and will be difficult.

Students have collected supplies for their new classmates.

County leaders such as Alex Dudchock, Shelby County’s county manager, have harnessed the resources of Alabama’s most affluent county to make a place a home for evacuees.

What has been done to the Shelby County Exhibition Center to make it a home away from home for evacuees is remarkable; how same has been done in such a short amount of time is just as impressive.

Our county has quite a reputation for getting the undoable done and folks like Dudchock and those who work with him have earned that reputation for us.

Churches across our county of all denominations have done as they always do; amazed us with their generosity and their ability to help those in need.

Many have sought shelter in the facilities of area churches where they found caring people, warm meals, clothes to wear and a place to sleep.

Volunteers, from civic groups to the Red Cross, have invested their time and sweat loading donated water into trucks bound for the gulf coast, donating blood and platelets, collecting donations and finding ways to help.

Collection sites for donations are scattered across the county at schools, churches and businesses.

If you ever wondered what makes our county so special, you can be reminded of one of the reasons by noticing what our friends and neighbors are doing in the wake of what is perhaps America’s greatest natural disaster.

Perhaps doing the right thing was never meant to be easy.

But its rewards are great for all concerned