That’s one of the first things that stood out to me when I was deciding where to move to live after living life in Savannah, GA for 11 years. It was extremely important to me (despite still barely making ends meet) that I be able to find a way to give back to the community in the same way if not more than I was able to do while living in the South’s Hostess City. There are many cities that claim to be a giving community, but Birmingham is one that continues to amaze at every turn.

If a main goal of The Terminal is to serve as a hub for information in our region, a by product of that is to raise the awareness level about people and organizations that have not received the recognition that they deserve, whether passively or actively. It impressed me that we’ve received more responses from readers when asked about a cause that they feel passionate about than we have for questions to be directed at the people that we hope will help us continue to be able to serve these groups as we move our city forward at the beginning of the 21st century.

There were many groups that were nominated; we’re now ready to see which group people will choose as our poll will run through Friday afternoon. The purpose of this exercise was to get participation from those that read the posts and pages of this site and to help determine a direction for our social responsibilities.

That said, there were some organizations that are not listed in the final poll question. This is not because they are not worthy causes; I currently serve on Ruffner Mountain’s board of directors as its vice president and have had the opportunity to work with our local Community Foundation on a couple of projects since my arrival in town. Muse of Fire is an excellent program that is only beginning to determine its potential impact on our region and words cannot begin to describe the importance of Children’s Hospital. These are very important organizations in our daily lives here and some of them have not received the accolades that they so richly deserve as we tend to focus on things that are new and shiny rather than those things that lend to an area’s character (and that’s a shame). By not revealing my connection with Ruffner Mountain and other organizations before the beginning of the comment period, I felt I was violating the first of our guiding principles for the site. In running this site, I must always be able to make sure that no conflicts of interest arise that would jeopardize the integrity of any exercise undertaken by The Terminal. Those that want further explanation are asked to contact me directly.

Just because those organizations or movements are not listed in our front page poll does not mean that we do not support them. We wouldn’t have linked to their sites here if we didn’t want you to visit them virtually and physically and share whatever you can with them. The fact that people took it upon themselves to share their love and commitment to these efforts shows more about “the Birmingham that we want” than anything else. We just hope that those that wanted these to be included will still be willing to vote for the charities listed on the front page through Friday.

Thanks for caring; we’ll look forward to sharing our results with you.

André Natta is the publisher and managing editor of The Terminal. He also has returned to sporadically writing his personal blog, Dre’s Ramblings. You may contact him directly at andre[at]bhamterminal.com.