May's Brightest Updates from The Light Providers
OUR FIRST ORDER FROM HAWAII!
I still think about that. Someone in Kailua found The Light Providers. Not a neighbor, not a friend of a friend, not someone who saw us at a market. A person in another part of the country, more than 4,800 miles away from where we're based in Maryland, searched for something, found us, trusted us, and placed an order.
That doesn't get old.
People always ask why we built this brand around a product as simple as a wireless light and a portable solar panel. The answer is this: we're not really selling a light. We're solving a problem. Problems don't care about geography. A family in Sierra Leone trying to keep the lights on and a household in Hawaii looking for a reliable solar solution are connected by the same need. The internet just made it possible for one small business in Maryland to reach both of them.
E-commerce still amazes me. Not the technology itself, but what it makes possible. That someone can find you, believe in what you built, and bring it into their home without ever meeting you. That is trust. That is what we're building toward every single day.
To our customer in Kailua, thank you! You reminded us exactly why we started.
To everyone reading this, we're just getting started.
 — Ishmael, co-founder of The Light ProvidersÂ
Shining Our Light on Others (SOLOO)Â
Shining Our Light on Others (SOLOO), the brilliant Alegnta Mezmur, founder of Legna Ethiopia!Â
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We spoke with Alegenta at the Empower Community Weekend, and she shared how Legna is building a digital bridge for the Ethiopian diaspora community globally. Her platform is not just an online marketplace—it's a trusted way to shop and send gifts to local businesses in Addis Ababa, creating vital economic opportunities and strengthening community ties. She's providing a way for the diaspora to support home with ease and confidence.
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Enlighten Africa TriviaÂ
Today we’re testing Tre's knowledge of Africa!
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Respect the culture. Respect the history. And most importantly, R-E-S-P-E-C-T the knowledge.
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From record-breaking artists to barrier-breaking pioneers, this series is about honoring legacy while challenging what we think we know. Watch to the end, answer before the reveal, and see if you’re really a Black history expert.
👉 Who was the first African American Quarterback to win a super bowl?
📺 Watch the full Trivia video on YouTube
What's Next!
We're revamping our blog.
Not just to look better, but to actually serve you better. We hear the same questions from the diaspora community over and over. About power outages. About what to send home. About how families are managing without reliable electricity. Those questions deserve real answers, and right now, too many of those answers are hard to find or just plain wrong.
Here's something worth understanding about how AI works today. When you ask Google, ChatGPT, or Claude a question, it doesn't make up an answer out of thin air. It searches what's already out there. Which means if the information on the internet is inaccurate, incomplete, or told by someone who was never there, that's exactly what comes back to you. Garbage in, garbage out.
We've been there. We've done the field work in Sierra Leone. We've heard directly from families about what unreliable electricity actually costs them, not just in money but in safety, opportunity, and peace of mind. That story belongs to them and to us. We're not going to let someone else shape it.
We're building the resource we wish existed. Honest, specific, community-driven content about the real impact of power instability across West Africa and the Caribbean. Written by people who are connected to it.
Stay tuned...
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