I was lucky enough to attend two incredibly uplifting events this past week, the Issaquah Schools Foundation luncheon and the Issaquah Community Awards. Full of stories about volunteers rolling up their sleeves, nonprofits rising to the tremendous challenge of our times, and good things being done on a shoestring and positive thoughts, both events gave me great cause for optimism that we are in a good place.

Anyone who knows Issaquah knows the joint would just about fall over if it wasn’t for the scores of residents, young, old and in between, who work for nothing but the love of it. They fill roles as diverse as making sure school kids get across the road, showing visitors around the city, to guiding the policies of our city through the volunteer boards and commissions.

Though some of these we might describe as ‘light’ duties, there are others which provide core services. We have volunteer firefighters; it is volunteers that feed low income residents; it is volunteers that teach many of our children art and science and math.

Similarly, the Issaquah Schools Foundation is a nonprofit organization that has taken on the enormous responsibility of making sure our teachers have the tools they need to teach. We are not talking about frills here, nice little extras like pretty uniforms and field trips to the snow. We are talking about books, science equipment, libraries, computers — the nuts and bolts of an education system.

In this tough economy it really blew my hair back to see people still giving when they themselves were probably doing it a little tough. As well as the individual donors, big corporations came through — Microsoft, Swedish, and Port Blakely, among others. Great stuff. Good on them.

But the nagging question I always have when I see these fantastic charitable acts is, why has it come to this?

The role of nonprofits as quasi-government agencies distinguishes America from the rest of the world. In Seattle, particularly, the social service nonprofit environment is without peer.

They are high functioning fundraisers and service providers that play crucial roles in keeping our communities together — they feed people, provide transportation support, manage our public lands, keep people healthy, help the sick.

The philanthropic support of social works programs is a relatively modern phenomenon, and one that grows from America’s free economy.

The desire to give so generously shows an awareness of the huge disparity between the haves and have nots, and recognition of the government’s unwillingness to become more involved in public services. Business is the government in America, and it’s where the most social progress occurs.

But it musn’t be forgotten that the reason there is so much nonprofit activity in America is essentially because of the failures of government.

I’m sure the Issaquah Schools Foundation would be happy to have nothing to do — it is only because our schools system is so woefully under-funded that they need to exist at all. I’m sure the Sammamish and Issaquah Interfaith Coalition would be happy to be redundant, because the state government decided it had a responsibility to house its citizens, even the poor, crazy, and unlucky ones. I’m sure the Issaquah moms who raise money for the Seattle Children’s Hospital would be stoked if their services were not required, because our governments figured out that helping sick children was part of the basic charter of a human framework that justifies their existence.

But, of course, as you look at our county and state accountants, empty pockets turned out, forlorn look on their faces, we often assume that the money just isn’t there — they can’t give what they don’t have.

But that just isn’t true. Sure, states and counties are hamstrung by what funds they collect regionally, and what their regional responsibilities are. But as a nation, there is more than enough money to provide for each and every citizen with far greater compassion and humanity than we do so at present, and for which the federal government will account.

Massive amounts of money continues to be spent on things which are clearly counterproductive to the building of a safe, healthy, modern America — such as government subsidies to promote toxic and unsustainable agriculture, the bailout of self-serving financial institutions whose repugnant leaders should be in prison, never mind getting assistance, and the sponsorship of wars where the only groups that benefit are the corporations that make the bullets.

The money is there, it is just that we have built for ourselves a political system that prevents it from being spent where it is needed. Until then, thank heavens for the charitable, the big of heart and the kind of spirit. They continue to step up, taking the place of a government that has abandoned its most basic responsibilities to people.