Much is written around the Thanksgiving holiday about the research on the health effects of gratitude.

Being mindful of that for which you are grateful can boost your sense of well-being. Gratitude for little things your partner does can strengthen your relationship. Gratitude is linked to optimism, which is linked to a healthier immune system. Writing down that for which you are grateful before bed can help you sleep better. Teams who are grateful have been shown to have more success on the field than those who are not.

The night before Thanksgiving, as I sat sipping a glass of champagne that cost more than the bottle of wine I usually buy, toasting the near end of a difficult year, I thought about several of the things in my life for which I am grateful.

Clearly, having the resources to be sitting in a bar overlooking the lights of Portland and leaving work behind for two days to stay in a four-star hotel came immediately to mind. However, even while spending two weeks this past winter in the hospital while my sweetie was in critical condition, I found much to be grateful for — the fact that we had insurance, we were in a beautiful facility close to home, surrounded with caring providers, good food and beautiful art. Those thoughts of gratitude were with me throughout the difficult times we spent there.

Day to day, though, living in Waterville, I can find many reasons to be grateful. Our community is one that is open-hearted and willing to step up to support those with a harder row to hoe than I have.

For years, the Mid Maine Homeless Shelter, the Evening Sandwich Program, the area food banks and the Sacred Heart soup kitchen have provided food for the increasing numbers of people who are hungry in our community.

Two years ago, a group of us learned how to create opportunities for people to move out of poverty and to support them so they could stay out. The Poverty Action Coalition now has more than 200 people willing to pitch in to provide a needed extra boost, helping people with such things as security deposits, furniture, car repairs and alternative transport options.

Last year, the Purple Panther Food pantry opened in the Mitchell School for families in need, and similar pantries have spread to Educare and other area schools.

I’m grateful on the state level that I have a community of progressive activists who work on system change so that one day we won’t need food cupboards. Those people help sustain me when I’m overwhelmed by the fear and anger I see while reading people’s online comments on articles about people in poverty and refugees, perusing Facebook posts of some friends, and hearing the cynical blather of politicians cashing in on people’s insecurity.

Last Wednesday, more than 100 of those progressive friends — some I know and some I don’t — were in front of the Blaine House sending a message to the world that Maine is open for business when it comes to accepting refugees. While my sign read, “The Governor doesn’t speak for me,” every one of the others were much more welcoming and positive — an attitude I’m trying to adopt to replace my anger at and cynicism of those in charge. I loved the signs held by teens quoting from Emma Lazarus’ poem on the Statue of Liberty and Anne Frank’s diary because they give me hope for the future.

The sign that most affected me with its generosity, held by a rabbi and her children, read “Maine Jews Support Muslim Refugees.”

On the cosmic level, I’m grateful for winning the birth lottery when I was conceived. That would be the lottery that provided me with white, middle-class, educated parents and left me blonde, blue-eyed and heterosexual, born in a country that was free and likely to stay that way.

Whether or not those of us who are born with those characteristics want to acknowledge it, they are not anything we earned. Whether or not we work hard later in life, we will always have a leg up because of them. It’s taken me a while to not feel guilty about my unearned privilege but to use it to speak out on behalf of others who were not born in or live in circumstances similar to mine.

So, in this season of thanksgiving, I appreciate the research that says being thankful can boost your pro-social behaviors and make you more likely to help people. I think it also has made me more able to embrace difference and change and less likely to be fearful of either.

Karen Heck is a longtime resident and former mayor of Waterville.