Perri Kersh, a Chapel Hill mother and professional organizer, was inspired by comments she heard Bill Clinton make about the power of individuals to help solve larger problems. She had received invitations to several "sip and shop" parties, social gatherings that offered participants the opportunity to buy holiday gifts. She put those two ideas together and came up with the idea: a party at which participants could donate to worthy causes in the names of their loved ones.

Along with Tamara Lackey, Mary Beth Grealey and Neva Bartholemew, Kersch organized the "giving party." Party-goers had a good time, and in the process donated more than $12,000 to organizations ranging from World Vision to the Family Violence Prevention Center of Orange County.

Good ideas are a dime a dozen. The important thing is the next step, doing the planning and making the effort to put them into practice. Good on Kersh and her partners for seeing this one through.


RASPBERRIES to the UNC board of trustees for bailing on a chance to take a stand against the arms-race mentality that rules college athletics.

The trustees, by an 11-2 vote, approved a raise of $291,000 for football coach Butch Davis after his first season, in which his Tar Heels went 4-8.

Don't get us wrong: We're fans of Davis. He seems like the right man for the job, and we suspect that in a year or two he'll have the Tar Heels on the sunny side of .500.

Carolina is right to want to keep him around. That's why last year it gave him a seven-year contract worth an average of $1.86 million per year. You'd think that would be enough, at least for now, at least until the team clearly turns the corner.

But no. Whispers drifted in the wind that the University of Arkansas might have designs on Davis. That's all it took, apparently. Desperate to prevent Davis from being wooed by the Razorbacks, or anyone else, UNC athletic director Dick Baddour and the trustees hurried to wave more money -- a lot more money -- at him.

Where does it end? Are we going to ratchet up the cash every time we fear that another school has batted its eyes at our coach?

Things have gotten badly out of whack when the prevailing view seems to be that in order to be a great university you have to have a great football team, and that therefore no price is too high.


ROSES to the students, faculty and staff at Carrboro Elementary School, for planning and executing a food drive that didn't just meet their target but more than doubled it.

Students decided that a good way to honor Carrboro Elementary's 50th anniversary would be to launch a canned food drive to benefit families in need within the school community, as well as the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service's food pantry.

They set a goal of 50 cans of food per grade, for a total of 300 cans. By the time all was said and done, the food drive had netted 590 cans of food, plus $910.

Some food stayed at the school to be distributed in holiday gift baskets to Carrboro Elementary families in need. Students helped bag and box the rest -- almost 400 cans -- to deliver to the Food Pantry.

Gotta love that.