Mayor Robert Macdonald’s letter to the editor (March 31) was heartbreaking to me. I am grateful to live in Lewiston, where so many people have worked hard and with kindness to welcome and assist new neighbors from away.

Far from being interlopers, the people I have met who have come from Africa and Latin America to live here, have come for the same reason I came — to make a good life for their families in a safe community.

And after often amazingly brief periods of need for help, considering all they’ve been through, they are adding their efforts to all of our efforts to make Lewiston a better community for everyone.

No one puts their life together all by themselves. No one. And, gratefully, there is a deep well of generosity in this community.

I believe Mayor Macdonald shares that generosity for people. I am puzzled by what he says that does not reflect it.

If only more of our legislators really did act like the very best missionaries we know — protecting, healing, supporting, encouraging. How amazing it would be to see how poverty, trauma and fear could be relieved in our lives together by the sharing of wise and sacrificial love for one another.

Many new Mainers I have met have powerfully modeled that spirit of caring for one another. Beyond the obvious economic benefit, I believe we will receive the moral and spiritual benefit of our good investment in their new beginnings.

Peg Hoffman, Lewiston