Occasionally a story will come along that inspires even a cynical journalist.

In this line of work, a lot of what we deal with is the darker side of human nature. As someone who spent more than a decade covering police, fire and court beats, I’ve seen the worst humanity has to offer. It’s easy to become jaded. As far as grouchy old newspaper editors go, I’m about as grouchy and pessimistic as they come.

But I was been blown away last week by the way my community rallied around Michael Treinen and his family. If a story like this doesn’t touch your heart, then you don’t have one.

When we got into the office last Monday morning to find several e-mails detailing the family’s plight – how Michael had reached a lifetime cap on his insurance and would need to raise $500,000 by Thursday in order to have a bone marrow transplant – the cynic in me said “no way.” I mean think about that. A half million dollars in four days.

Well, as of Friday, the community had collected more than $700,000 to help save this young man’s life. That’s staggering. Never in my career have I seen anything like that. I’ve never even heard of a community rallying like that, in that amount of time.

Schools and organizations and businesses pitched in to help. In most cases, they were helping someone they didn’t even know.

I don’t know the Treinen family. But I want to personally thank everyone who took the time to collect donations, who gave income from their business or their family budget.

As a father, I can’t even imagine what it would be like for my son to be facing that type of battle. But I hope the Treinens gain some comfort in knowing they are loved and supported.

As a Noblesville resident, I am proud to say this is the community in which I am raising my children.

Our job is to give you the news, and often the news is bad. While most of what the Noblesville Daily Times reports is positive news, it is seldom as inspiring as this.

It has been an honor to share this story, and it is an honor to serve a community like this.