“Without affordable housing, we’re going to lose the communities we’ve grown to love,” said Tom Ruhle, the director of East Hampton Town’s office of housing and community development, at a forum on affordable housing hosted by the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons on Monday. 

The event at the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton saw Mr. Ruhle and three other housing officials from East Hampton and Southampton defend and extoll the virtues of government-assisted housing projects.

They took gifts for the villagers — soccer balls, Frisbees, Slinky toys, Uno — symbols of friendship and appreciation for their host families. But they got something so much greater in return.

A group of East Hampton High School students who traveled to Nepal several weeks ago to work with the organization buildOn, laying the foundation for a new school in a rural village, told the East Hampton School Board recently how the trip had changed their lives.