Over the years, we have written about the community in action over and over again, striving to make the island — or the world — a better place. It is always a pleasure to cover the stories of islanders rolling up their sleeves and tending to important work. Still, last week’s Cascadia Rising stands out as a marvel of volunteer effort.

Members of Vashon Island Fire & Rescue who participated were paid for their efforts, of course, but the backbone of the exercise was made up of island volunteers, from Rick Wallace, who worked on the effort — for free — for two years, to the many volunteers who staffed the Emergency Operations Center all four days, to the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and Medical Reserve Corps members who spent three hours in a field learning how to load patients into a Black Hawk helicopter — with humor, grace and enthusiasm.

Longtime CERT member Sharon Danielson was there and right after the helicopter landed conveyed the spirit in the air — which remained through much of the four long days.

“I’ve been waiting for this my whole life,” she said. “This is a bucket list thing.”

VIFR Chief Hank Lipe, soon to be leaving the fire department, expressed his gratitude on Friday, saying that the 150 volunteers were certain to save lives in the future.

It was a Herculean effort, and we owe all the volunteers a debt of gratitude. Those of who can should join them in volunteering, and we should all have well-stocked pantries and storage sheds at our homes so that we might be prepared when disaster strikes.

Just as Cascadia Rising faded from view, another group of islanders — the Vashon-Maury Health Collaborative — stepped forward to say that the developments regarding island medical care are not moving ahead as smoothly as many islanders had hoped. It appears that no local health care provider is prepared to lose money by serving the residents of Vashon, and if a group such as UW Medicine comes, it will want considerable financial support to do so.

The group is working on what to do now and is aiming to craft a plan to ensure interim medical services until a new long-term model — whatever it might be — can be established.

There are many questions to ask and answer in the weeks ahead, but some of the lessons of Cascadia Rising transfer to this situation: We are all in this together, and outside help might be a long time coming.

We’ll be expecting a crowd — thoughtful, opinionated and respectful — on July 8 at the public meeting when we talk this through.

We’re looking forward to seeing you there.