Sometimes, it seems impossible to escape the headlines.

We’re almost getting used to gloomy economic news, with more people losing their jobs each month, and then comes the unexpected. As the Red River kept rising, the media descended on Fargo, N.D., to capture that city’s race against the clock, to protect themselves from a potentially-catastrophic flood.

None of this is anything new. We’ve faced economic problems before, and natural disasters are a fact of life. You can probably remember our own cleanup after hurricanes, and an ice storm crippled our area not too many years ago.

The real tragedy of any economic or natural disaster is the effect it has on people, and these events remind us that we should be prepared to step in to help each other whenever situations like these arise. It’s not just a matter of applying the Golden Rule — though it’s always a good idea to treat others like we want to be treated — but it’s also vital for a healthy and prosperous community. Helping others in need actually helps ourselves, too.

That’s the idea behind Compassion ’09, a community roundtable to enhance social services in Lee County. This is not some throwaway conference. It’s a half-day gathering designed to provide essential information to our own community leaders and find ways to solve the most pressing problems we face.

Scheduled for May 14 at the McSwain Center in Sanford, Compassion ’09 will actually start weeks before, when a full list of social service agencies in the area will be distributed, so everyone will know who’s providing help and where they can be found. About that same time, event sponsors — which include a coalition of service groups with coordination from the United Way of Lee County — will ask local leaders to list the most important unmet needs in the community.

By the time everyone arrives for the roundtable, all of the preliminaries will be out of the way and it will be time to work.

While the agenda’s still being finalized, we already know that Eric Griffin, Lee County’s emergency management director, will lead this year’s FOCUS session to explain how our community would respond to a disaster. Something like what the people of North Dakota are facing right now.

The challenge, Eric says, is how to provide emergency aid immediately after the disaster and then continue to meet people’s critical needs for some period after that — until longer-term help arrives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and, eventually, in the form of individual insurance payments.

After Eric explains our current emergency plans, the roundtable shifts to solving problems for the future, with a separate strategy session designed around each of the community’s top unmet needs. Facilitators will work with people who actually deal with these problems to define what still needs to be done and how to make it happen.

Want an example? Take homelessness. There are very few options available locally for people who truly have no place to go. One of the few options — perhaps our only one — is a shelter operated by Christian Faith Ministries. It’s a marvelous ministry being performed by Donald Kivett and other exceptional people. But they don’t have much space and no single approach to homelessness can match the wide variety of individual circumstances and needs.

Results from the strategy sessions will be presented to the entire group to conclude the roundtable and then will be passed to a community work group, which will take suggestions, roll up their sleeves and start putting suggestions into action.

In other words: When Compassion ’09 ends, it’s not really over.

All churches, ministries and social service agencies — whether they’re a nonprofit organization or governmental agency — should send at least one person to participate in this important event.

There’s no way any of us can stop a flood or reverse the unemployment rate. What we can do is make sure we’re prepared for what’s sure to come, either now or in the future, and be ready to help our neighbors recover quickly and make our community thrive.

Compassion ’09 is one very important step.