Fires, accidents, crime, unemployment: Bad news makes news.

But there’s plenty of good news in our community, too. It’s reflected in the lives of our citizens and the good deeds they do every day. Consider a selection of stories reported just this week in our newspaper:

- Nine-year-old Sydney Geelan began raising money last summer so that she could purchase toys for the annual Yamhill County Sheriff’s Office toy drive. All by herself, she purchased $600 worth of toys for underprivileged children in the county.

- Members of four Linfield sororities delivered care packages this week to chronically ill children at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center. Shoebox-sized packages contained toys, cards and games.

- FFA members from Amity, Dayton, Perrydale, Willamina and Yamhill-Carlton collected 100 tons of food to be distributed to food banks across the state. The food will feed more than 6,200 families.

- Linfield’s Kappa Sigma fraternity members volunteer every Saturday with Special Olympics to help train athletes in bowling and volleyball.

- Journeyman electrician Brian Samp worked with apprentice electricians to wire four Habitat for Humanity duplex units this year. After seeing the call for volunteers in his union hall, he recruited the apprentices and plans to do it again next year.

- Bus drivers banded together between runs and knit 140 sets of scarves and hats to keep children warm this winter. The knitted pieces were donated to the Shop with a Cop program and will be delivered to kids this weekend.

- The owners of Coyote Joe’s Restaurant in Willamina will host its 12th annual free Christmas dinner from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Dec. 25. Santa makes an appearance and diners will be entertained by local musicians.

- For the past 39 years, the members of Walnut City Kiwanis have been building wooden trucks for kids in the community. They’re donated to the McMinnville Fire Department toy drive, Henderson House and to other needy kids.

There’s no end to the generosity and goodwill of the citizens of Yamhill County. In many ways, every day, in actions large and small, they do what they can to make this a better place to live.

And that’s good news.