When you live on Vancouver Island, summer means visitors, and visitors bring their stories; some may be stories of Neighbourhood Heroes.

Alex and Dorry Korn, two of my closest friends from Toronto visited me recently.

A month or so ago, a friend of Dorry's mother dropped by for a visit. They talked about many things including theatre, one of her passions.

In particular they talked about the Lion King, a show with a three to four month waiting list, a show she said, that she would love to see.

Being one of the most generous people I know, Alex offered to get tickets for the three of them and Dorry's mother.

"Don't waste your money," their friend told them. "I won't live that long. I've been diagnosed with terminal cancer." But Alex insisted and persisted.

A few days later, after a follow up visit with her doctor, their friend dropped by again. She had been told she had only six to eight weeks to live.

Alex immediately called the ticket office at the Royal Alexander Theatre to see if they could rush the ticket order. Girard, the person that took his call, did his very best to get four tickets for anytime during the next couple of weeks ... but they just weren't there to be found. He could get four singles but they needed four together.

"This guy gave his all," Alex said. "He spent over an hour with me on the phone. I was so impressed I e-mailed the box office manager to make sure he knew what great service Girard had offered.

(Neighbourhood Heroes actually write those letters, they don't just think about it.)

Not willing to give up just yet, Alex turned to Labatt Breweries.

Being a large corporation, Labatt buys blocks of tickets to all the big shows, which they distribute to special clients.

He explained the situation to Heather Morrison who said she would see what she could do.

When he hadn't heard anything for three or four days, Alex began to think that they had all done their best but nothing could be done. Then the phone rang, and a short time later, rang again.

Heather from Labatt was the first to call. She had four seats. They were on the isle, centre section.

Soon after, Girard called. His manager had read Alex's e-mail, called a number of different ticket holders and managed to shuffle them around in order to create a block of four seats.

"What a wonderful, caring effort," Alex smiled.

But there were still more Neighbourhood Heroes to come.

When they got to the theatre, their friend's health was such that she had to keep her legs up as much as possible -- the isle seat helped. She also had to make several trips to the washroom and a couple of times had to leave the theatre to lie down.

That's where the other Neighbourhood Heroes came in. The first time she needed to lie down, one of the ushers found a storage room that had a leather recliner in it.

He removed a number of boxes that were stacked on top and gave her a place to rest.

At intermission, when she needed to lie down again, another usher had made special arrangements for her to use the Princess Dianna VIP Lounge.

She was treated like a queen.

This story about five different Neighbourhood Heroes, told by a couple of visitors to Vancouver Island, proves once again that Neighbourhood Heroes are everywhere.

Do you know any? Are you one yourself?