Sometimes, a community can be overwhelmed. Like Boston was in 2015 with almost 100 inches on snow.

Think about it – that’s an 8 foot high snow pile!

Firefighters were spending their time digging out hydrants and then doing it all over again as the snow accumulated.

There are 13,683 of them!!

Everyone was trying their best, however the circumstances were extreme.

And then — a fire broke out in a neighborhood and the first responding fire truck arrived only to find the closest hydrant was frozen. And the hose had to be hooked up to another hydrant located several hundred feet away. Not a good thing when time is of the essence.

Enter a solution involving the entire community: Adopt a Hydrant.

Under this program, people volunteer to be responsible for shoveling out a fire hydrant after it snows.

The website has an interactive map that shows where the fire hydrants are located. It’s pretty amazing how cluttered it is with red dots.

And the Boston Red Sox pitched in too – free tickets to a game for anyone who cleared 5 hydrants.

And just when you think that a community effort like this only involves snow, it turns out that there’s the “Adopt a Siren” program in Hawaii. It’s an app that gives citizens an opportunity to adopt a tsunami siren and check it for functionality.

I don’t know about you, but next time I pass an “Adopt a Highway” sign, I will definitely think about all of those people who volunteer to make my community a better place to live.

Jeanette