Hit >> The North Valley Community Foundation continues to be a blessing to Chico.

After the Annie B’s community fundraising drive ran its course, the organization continues to find ways to be helpful in the community through charitable donations.

After Project Sidewalk during the holidays, the foundation found a way to help even more people, erasing the $5,573 that 1,224 students owe to Chico schools through the district’s lunch program.

Instead of those students being stuck with cheese sandwiches because parents didn’t pay off their debt, the students started the calendar year with a clean slate. All because one kind foundation donor decided that would be a good way to help. We applaud that community spirit — and as one reader pointed out, it didn’t cost taxpayers a dime.

Miss >> There was a fascinating investigative story in Monday’s newspaper that we hope everybody got a chance to see, because it explains a lot about what’s wrong with our state government.

Thanks to federal tax reform that punishes high-tax states, most of the country now knows California is a high-tax state. The story by John Woolfolk with our sister newspapers in the Bay Area News Group sought to examine where that money goes. The story showed that California residents paid more taxes than similar-sized states Texas and Florida, but those two states have more public school teachers per pupil and higher test scores, more cops per crime, more firefighters per resident and more criminals per capita behind bars.

The story showed that in many job areas — teachers and firefighters, for example — California employees were the highest-paid in the country. While the state spent well on people whose unions donate mightily to politicians’ campaigns, it didn’t do so well on “things.” Highway spending, for example, was average.

It raises the very legitimate question of whether Californians are getting their money’s worth on their tax “donations.”

Hit >> You were probably as astounded as we were to read that two stock-herding dogs had sold for $30,000 each during last weekend’s Bull and Gelding Sale in Red Bluff.

A good cow dog is a valuable helper, but 30 grand?

Well, actually a good cow dog is more valuable than a lot of humans when it comes right down to it.

And when you think about it, the dogs will work for kibbles, there’s no workers’ compensation or unemployment to pay, and they aren’t likely to go out and get drunk on Saturday night and wreck the pickup.

That price might actually be a bargain.

Miss >> The Department of Water Resources took a bunch of news folks out for a photo opportunity Thursday at Echo Summit on Highway 50 to show how little snow there is in the mountains.

That same day, the folks who monitor drought in the nation reported about three-quarters of the state was “abnormally dry,” with nearly half in an official drought. Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties are already in “extreme drought.”

Next week the state will come out with the water conservation reports for December, and we’d wager we’re doing a really bad job as a state when it comes to saving water.

The last time the snowpack was this miserable at the end of January, Jerry Brown was standing in that same field a few months later, ordering Californians to save water.

It’s a shame it might have to come down to that again.

“Hits and Misses” appears each Saturday. Items are compiled by the editorial board.