It's been a bit of a downer of a winter, and I have been keen to write all over it with my opinion. For Holy Week and Easter, it's high time to remember there are some very high-minded and hard-working people doing great things for those who need it most.

I write and talk a lot about New Mexico's very troubled Child, Youth and Families Department (CYFD). I was taping an episode of New Mexico in Focus on NM PBS earlier this winter and one of the topics was the governor's toothless CYFD executive order drafted to provide cover in the face of all the inertia in that agency.

Fellow panelist Dave Mulryan asked off-air, "Isn't there someone working to help these poor children?" The other panelist, Andy Lyman, and I said at the same time, "Maralyn Beck!"

Maralyn Beck is the founder and executive director of the New Mexico Child First Network which is a resource for New Mexico's foster families and an advocacy voice for foster children in Santa Fe. I wouldn't know half of what I do without her tremendous knowledge of the system and its inadequacies.

Maralyn, a foster parent herself, has put together a tremendous toolkit for foster families – training, networking, regulatory resources – you name it. She also lobbies the legislature relentlessly for independent oversight for CYFD, something badly needed when it comes to adjudicating complaints within the agency.

If you are interested in fostering, or are a foster parent looking for help, please visit nmchildfirst.org. It is the first place to find information and resources. Donations are also welcome and easy to make on the website.

I made a new friend in March through this column. A fellow Navy veteran, Ridge, wanted to meet for breakfast and talk about child hunger. After too much time spent on sea stories and the overall ills that beset our state, I finally let Ridge get to his point – child hunger also impacts literacy.

Hunger impacts everything from concentration to brain development. New Mexico is number one in the nation for child hunger.

I was really happy to refer him to another woman doing great things for New Mexico kids: Tracy Rodden, executive director of Feed New Mexico Kids. Feed New Mexico Kids operates out of an Albuquerque church and provides weekend food – "snack packs" – every Friday to over 3,000 Albuquerque kids who otherwise would go hungry.

I wrote about Tracy about a year and a half ago when she was the outreach coordinator for Feed New Mexico Kids. She's now running the show, which is a fairly massive volunteer and logistics operation. The need never lets up and there are many more kids than the 3,000 they can reach who are going without.

Quite simply, kids need to concentrate on learning instead of where their next meal is coming from. A third grader can lose as much as two pounds over a weekend without school breakfast and lunch. You can visit feednmkids.org and learn how to volunteer, donate, or even get information to start a program in your own area.

Now, for a little nepotism (hey, I AM a New Mexican, after all!). What if I told you that a communication and marketing executive, who has taught business and marketing courses at the college level, decided to return to the classroom for her last job before retirement – a middle school classroom in an iffy Albuquerque neighborhood?

My sister, Jared, is teaching 6th grade English. She has started a school paper. She believes in "drill it and kill it" for grammar inculcation. Her students read the Harry Potter books aloud and silently.

"It's the first job I've looked forward to going to every day in over a decade," she says.

She keeps up on all the eleven-year-old drama. She also sees the impacts of generational poverty, absent parents, and drug abuse at home on her students.

She is determined that her students should all learn to speak and write properly, despite the shortcuts that Google and ChatGPT offer. She wants them to take pride in themselves and how they present themselves both orally and via the written word. She really gives a damn about these kids.

I am tremendously proud of her.

There's a common thread among all these kind and driven people I want to point out since this is a pseudo-political column. As our country has grown apart, we are too quick to put labels on people.

All the individuals I have mentioned here, working to help our most vulnerable population, are strong conservatives. Two are active in the Republican Party. Not every conservative is wearing a MAGA hat and shouldering an AK-47 on their way to protest outside an abortion clinic.

If we can all agree - conservative, progressive, liberal, moderate – that our children are our most precious natural resource, what else could we agree on? From child welfare to child hunger to basic educational foundations, these are starting points for productive conversations from all political sectors.

If we are willing to have them.

Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appears regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican, she lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run two head of dog, and two of cat. She can be reached at news.ind.merritt@gmail.com.