Sometimes big news doesn't jump out at you as "Big News!" Sometimes, inconspicuously, it quietly asserts its importance. When it does, it can take your breath away. That was the awareness I had over the holidays when I considered this simple truth: Every week, for more than 13 years, men have been coming to the Men's Resource Center to sit with other men and talk safely and confidentially about what is going on in their lives. Every week. Every single week. Even when groups fall on Christmas Eve and Christmas night and New Year's Eve and New Year's night as they did at the close of 2006. It is staggering to consider how powerful a truth it is to know that such steady support exists.

What's also big news about these groups is that they are all facilitated by volunteers. It's a wonderful collection of men, dedicated, big-hearted, gracious and giving men. Usually they are men who had been longtime participants, men who shared that they had gotten so much out of attending the groups that they wanted to give back, they wanted others to experience what they had: support, comfort, safety, and most of all, being heard. The longtime group facilitators act as mentors and trainers for potential new facilitators in a rigorous process to prepare new men to join the facilitator team.

When the Men's Resource Center for Change started its Support Program, in 1993, we began with a single Sunday evening group at our main office in Amherst, Massachusetts. Today we offer five groups, including ones in the nearby communities of Northampton and Greenfield. Three of the groups are open to men with a range of life issues; one is specifically for men who identify as gay, bisexual, or are questioning their sexual orientation; another is for men who were abused or neglected when they were growing up. Since the Men's Resource Center for Change began offering groups, we have assisted other men's organizations to start groups of their own. It's comforting to know that our model is being employed as close to our own headquarters as Worcester, Mass. (the Central Mass. Men's Resource Center) and Keene, N.H (Monadnock Men's Resource Center), and as far away as Harlingen, Texas (the Men's Resource Center of South Texas). Groups starting (Burlington, Vermont) or long underway (Raleigh, N.C), have also benefited from our approach. (Web editor's note: to learn more about the MRC's history of supporting other men's centers, click here.)

Men of different backgrounds and situations, ages and stages, come to the open groups for a variety of reasons--a crisis in their marriage, the challenges of raising teens, caring for aging parents; I don't presume to know all their reasons. Men in the specialized groups might be addressing "coming out" issues or deepening their healing from the abuse they'd experienced. What I do know is that at every group each man will have a chance, if he so chooses, to speak twice, once at the group's beginning and again at its close. A man can come as regularly or sporadically as he'd like and can attend more than one group in a week. All this for free. Considering the cost to attend many men's gatherings and weekends, it's quite a deal. (Participants are asked, but not required, to make a contribution).

Once a month the entire volunteer facilitator team gathers together as a support group for each other, a time to be there for one another as both participants and co-facilitators. It's a powerful reminder to each of the support men need--and deserve to have.

That men have places to come together to safely and confidentially talk week in and week out may not be big news in the same way the senseless war in Iraq is, may not seem as urgent as addressing the shameful neglect the residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are enduring. Nevertheless, that there are men working to redefine masculinity is revolutionary. It's the kind of news that reminds me of Margaret Mead's oft-quoted line: "Never doubt that a thoughtful, committed group of citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

To learn more about MRC support groups, call (413) 253-9887 Ext. 10 or click here to send an email. Click here to see the schedule for our weekl;y support groups.

Rob Okun is the executive director of the Men's Resource Center for Change and editor of Voice Male magazine. He can be reached by clicking here.