While the prolonged blackout in Pomona NY has exposed the shortcomings of those responsible for keeping the lights on, it has also revealed the very best of our community.

As countless families sat in dark homes, with no air conditioning, no way to cook, and mounting frustration, a few residents whose homes were fortunate enough to have generators looked around and asked a simple question: How can we help?

Without fanfare or publicity, they organized free hot meals, pizza, fries, and other food, and arranged for them to be delivered directly to the homes of families still without electricity.

In a time when so many were focused on what they had lost, these neighbors focused on what they could give.

Their generosity reminded us that while electricity can illuminate a house, kindness illuminates a community. Long after the power is restored and the inconvenience is forgotten, people will remember the neighbors who turned their good fortune into an opportunity to care for others.

Blackouts have a way of revealing what truly powers a community. This week, it wasn’t Orange & Rockland. It was the compassion, generosity, and sense of responsibility that neighbors showed one another.

That is the light no outage can extinguish.