Sometimes we just need a good story. Especially during the holidays. State officers like Utah’s Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox and State Auditor John Dougall do not disappoint.
Last week Cox and Dougall, and 43 other big-hearted Utahns, traveled to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico to deliver badly needed supplies. They paid their own way, barely slept, in sleeping bags in a crowded home, were oftentimes without electricity or clean water and generally had the best experience they could hope for.
Dougall said, “While the work was physically demanding, the conditions were very challenging and the days were extremely long, the opportunity to serve our fellow citizens, our Puerto Rican family, was incredibly rewarding.” Dougall lived in Puerto Rico for two years from 1985 to 1987.
The effort started when Dougall and Tani Downing, director of the Department of Administrative Services, began raising money after the hurricane hit on Sept. 20 at 155 miles per hour, causing more than $90 billion in damage. The island’s electrical grid was already overtaxed and under-maintained. Most of the island is still without power.
Dougall and Downing teamed up with Vivint Inc. in their charitable effort, collected donations and supplies and prepared them for shipment. They then joined with Tifie Humanitarian to operate as Light Up Puerto Rico, and the first group of volunteers embarked last week.
Donations included hundreds of pallets of solar-powered lights, bottled water, canned goods, hygiene kits, medical kits, solar-powered generators and even money.
Most surprising to Cox was how the island, even two months after the hurricane hit, still looks like a war zone, with damaged homes, dangling utility wires and unkempt streets. But still, Puerto Rico’s people remain strong. Cox noted that he often saw people who they had just delivered supplies to take those badly-needed supplies to neighbors who seemingly needed them more.
“We went down there to deliver hope, that they hadn’t been forgotten,” Cox said. “But I came away more hopeful because I saw neighborhoods coming together. I saw people with nothing serving others.”
The group last week was only the first group to go. The foundation is planning future aid trips to deliver more supplies monthly until June.
Dougall reminds us, “It’s easy for us to take the conveniences of life for granted. I was reminded that running water is much more important than electricity.”
Most of us here in Utah enjoyed a bountiful Thanksgiving with tables full of food, warm homes and hot showers. And our December celebrations will be similarly plentiful. It’s important we remember that not everyone enjoys such bounty. Even our own countrymen.