PUEBLO DE PALMAS -- Under the sun’s fading light, a group of children gathered for an impromptu soccer game on a waterlogged field.

They didn’t have to go home yet.

As the soccer game unfolded in the background at a park in Pueblo de Palmas, a sprawling, poverty-stricken colonia near Alton, residents and government officials celebrated the installation of street lights that facilitated the game Saturday night.

Pueblo de Palmas is one of several Hidalgo County colonias that saw solar-powered lights installed in the past year using funds from the American Recovery Act, beginning what county officials describe as the start of an effort to light other rural neighborhoods.