Unprecedented. Difficult. Heartbreaking. The words that come up when people discuss 2020 are rarely positive. But as a pandemic and economic hardships spread across the United States, NeighborWorks network organizations moved quickly, created new partnerships, worked long hours and offered new services to help residents in their communities. As we begin a new calendar year, we asked a few leaders across the network to share some of their thoughts about the year we just completed, and about the year ahead.

"It's about people," says Wayne Meyer, chief executive officer of New Jersey Community Capital. That's one reason he serves as mentor for the Puerto Rico Nonprofit Leadership Development Initiative.

Some years, hurricane season is marked by one or two major storms that make headlines across the country. Some years, it's marked by smaller storms that disrupt fewer lives. But every year, the Red Cross encourages residents to be prepared.

No matter the time of year or the area of the country, when disasters strike, lives are transformed. Every disaster is uniquely painful to the people it displaces. Hurricanes don't have much in common with wildfires; earthquakes don't resemble floods. But all disasters, natural and manmade, destroy homes and livelihoods. Another commonality: cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all approaches don't work to cope with them.

I recently visited Puerto Rico along with NeighborWorks America Regional Vice President Joan Straussman to assess the damage that still exists months after Hurricane Maria hit, learn firsthand the progress being made by our three network members on the ground and chart a path forward to continue to help the island's residents recover. Here is my report.