On Sunday, Sept. 29, when New Garden Flying Field Manager Jon Martin first saw the images of mass destruction near Asheville, North Carolina flash across his television screen, his immediate and guttural reaction was one of heartbreak and empathy.

On Monday, Sept. 30 – in response to a widespread bulletin that called for donations to the victims of Hurricane Helene that reached them the day before -- dozens of residents of New Garden Township and nearby towns first began to drop off items ranging from kitchen cleaners to diapers to dog food at the airport, with no other intent but to answer the call to respond to an emergency.

On Tuesday, Oct. 1, as the word spread about what was happening at the airport, dozens more began to arrive with items, and by the end of the day, nearly the entire meeting space and conference room at the airport was filled with donated items, neatly stacked by a team of airport staff and volunteers who put their own time on hold in order to prepare for the loading of materials onto the first plane. Their only purpose for being there was to serve others.

On Wednesday, Oct. 2, well before 9 a.m., the first plane took off for Raleigh Executive Airport in North Carolina, followed by another and another, and over the course of three days, 21 pilots and a small but dedicated army of volunteers that included the members of the Upland Country Day School boys’ hockey team helped to coordinate a total of 21 flights that delivered 22,000 pounds of items to the people of Asheville, North Carolina.

It was a reflex movement of decency and conviction – a supreme act of gentle heroism – but perhaps lost in the action of all of these good deeds was heard in the silencing of judgement. No one who was involved in the four-day relief effort at the New Garden Flying Field stopped to consider whether the recipients of these deliveries were Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, MAGA or woke. They did not undertake this effort for political gain or to make a statement that would reflect the views of one ideology while at the same time denouncing the ideology of others. It did not matter to them whether those on the other end of these deliveries were gay or straight or trans, Catholic or Jewish or Muslim or if they supported Israel or Palestine, or whether they were seventh-generation Americans or illegal immigrants who had arrived in North Carolina seeking freedom.

Frederick Douglass, the social reformer, abolitionist and the most important leader of the movement for civil rights during the 19th century, once wrote, “The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful and virtuous.” Our country, and in a greater sense our country’s consciousness, cannot and will not survive should the rhetoric of hatred and division continue to perpetuate and magnify.

There are many Americans who disagree with the premise, who believe that the cinder block separation of people and ideas and preferences is the right way and the only way for the country to survive. One presidential candidate is staking his entire platform on such a vision for America, and as we quickly approach what will be the most important election in the 21st century to this point, we need to ask ourselves whether the stunning miracle that happened last week at the New Garden Flying Field is an example of our honesty, our truth and our virtuosity, or whether it was a mere exception. The answer will either save or kill the truest definition of who we are as Americans, and who we will become.