Janell Karst, a 21 year-old Tourism Management student has nominated her aunt, Linda Karst/Labbee, as today's Neighbourhood Hero and, in turn, I want to nominate her.

Janell's story will give hope to all parents who are struggling with a "difficult" teenager. Perhaps it will give hope to some of those teenagers too.

This is a young woman who, like many young people over the generations, has flirted on the edge of disaster but, with support, has found her way back.

So today's column is about two Neighbourhood Heroes, Janell and her Aunt Linda.

Janell left home at the age of 15, got a job, and, although she tried to continue with her education, finally dropped out.

"I kinda lived on the street," she says, "even though I always had a place to sleep but I hung out with grungy people, people who were totally no good for me."

When she was 17, Janell took off and hitch hiked across Canada without telling anyone in her family where she was going. Eventually, she ended up in the Yukon.

In the process, she bumped up against the law, hung out with a girl who sold her body and, eventually, found herself on the road to selling drugs herself, although she never did.

"Easily right now I could be pregnant, in jail or addicted to something if it weren't for aunt Linda," Janell smiled with a tear in her eye. "I was such an idiot ... but that's OK. I learned a lot too."

Janell didn't have a lot of self-esteem during that time but her Aunt Linda always believed in her, always believed that, eventually, she would straighten out her life and find her way back.

Linda kept in touch, made phone calls and constantly sent family photo albums, self-help books, and long motivational letters.

"I kept messing up but Aunt Linda always made me feel that I could recover from it," Janell smiled. "She's amazing. She's been there every step of the way, good and bad. She'd always say, 'What are you going to do now? You got yourself into it so how are you going to fix it? What have you learned from your mistakes? You've got to take responsibility for what's happening to you,' things like that."

In time, all the messages sunk in, especially the one about accepting responsibility for our life.

"It's really hard to break away from friends you have had for a long time," Janell told me, "even if they are bad for you but I had to if I was going to change.

So she moved to Nanaimo where she didn't know anyone, completed high school, entered the Tourism Management program, made a whole bunch of friends and ... created a new life. Of course she still has challenges but, then again, so do we all.

Now that Janell's life is back on track, her aunt Linda still keeps in close contact but today they mostly talk about all the good things that are happening. In fact, Linda called recently just to read a list she had prepared outlining all of Janell's accomplishments over the past three years.

As she was saying goodbye, Janell summed up perhaps the most important thing she has learned since leaving her old life behind, "Once you make a conscious decision to hang out with positive people," she told me, "you run into them all over the place."

Of course her Aunt Linda and readers of this column have known that for years. We call those people Neighbourhood Heroes ... and they really are all over the place.