Later this month, The Post-Searchlight will publish its annual Profile section. This section is always a special undertaking, because it’s full of nothing but stories and photographs about people in our community. You won’t find any “bad news” or crime in this section, but what you will find are a lot of feel-good stories about people who are making a difference.

This year’s theme was “This is Why We Serve,” and every story is about people in the community who have some kind of service. In some cases, it was military service, for others it was community service, and for others it was religious service. But the unifying thread among all this year’s Profile subjects is that they have given their time and talents to help make a difference in their community, often for no personal reward, or for very-small compensation.

While researching the stories for this section, my staff and I were pleasantly surprised to see that it was sometimes difficult to get these wonderful citizens to open up about their service efforts. As reporters, we are used to having people need to warm up before they tell you their stories, but many of this year’s feature subjects were especially humble and quiet.

Often, we ran into interview subjects who questioned why we were even doing a story about them. To them, there was nothing noteworthy about giving their time and energy to make their world a better place. It was simply something they felt needed to do, as Christians and as human beings.

Several times, these profile subjects said that they were shy and did not initially want to do the stories, but they realized that they could help bring publicity and exposure to the groups they volunteer with. They said they could see the story helping to alert other people to help with these groups and make an even bigger difference. In fact, one subject even told one reporter that she believed a higher power was ordaining the story. “We didn’t call you,” she said. “You called us. God meant for this to happen.”

We hope that you enjoy reading these stories in Profile 2013, which will be published in the Wednesday, Feb. 27, edition of The Post-Searchlight. And we hope that their stories help convince you to also give of your time and talents to help improve our community and make Bainbridge an even greater place to live.