Wasn’t that a party, an old time country barn dance kind of party with little kids and great grandparents enjoying each other and kicking up their heels.

Thank goodness it rained sidewise downtown last Thursday and snowed in other parts of the city. There’s no doubt that if everyone that wanted to come had arrived, we would have broken the Yacht Club’s fire limit of 225 people.

Ten minutes before the party was to start close to 100 people had already arrived and the room was buzzing. As I stood at the mike to welcome people I looked up and saw a surprise guest, MAYOR GARY KORPAN. Although I hadn’t thought to invite him, he had heard about the party and decided that he would like to meet some of the people he had read about in this column.

Another politician, School Trustee, FRANK GARNISH, arrived early and stayed late; in fact he helped us clean up.

“I had the best time,” he said. “All I did was simply walk around and ask, ‘What did you do to qualify as a Neighbourhood Hero?’ I met some really interesting people and heard some great stories.”

School Board President, TERRYLYNN SAUNDERS, had a great time too. TerryLynn, my normally shy and retiring friend … NOT! … had a great time using our icebreaker questions to start conversations.

As I look back the entire evening is a bit of a blur to me and a little frustrating. There were so many people there I’m sure I didn’t have one conversation that lasted more than ten seconds and I would have liked to have been able to sit down with each and every person for an hour or more – OK so I like to talk. (That makes me sound like LYNN WELBURN doesn’t it?)

There were many highlights for me.

Singer/songwriter LYNN RADFORD provided the entertainment during the early part of the evening. Lynn is a wonderful talent and I was sorry that people were too engrossed in conversation to really listen to her lyrics.

The stars of the show however were TIPPY ANGEL our 85 year old piano player who plays every sing a long song ever sung and 28 year old KEVIN HICKS, our drummer and last week’s Neighbourhood Hero who has overcame paralysis and a major brain injury.

They “grooved” on one anther.

“She’s an absolute gas man,” Kevin enthused, “and since we both love music, we communicated at an unbelievable level.”

The youngest Neighbourhood Hero in attendance was nine year old, JESSICA HEIKES, who came with her grandmother SUE BENOIT. (Jessica still has her family and friends helping her to collect recyclable containers and if she keeps going until she graduates from high school, she will have over $23,000 in the bank to help pay for her post-secondary education.)

By the way I learned that Neighbourhood Hero, ROXANNE ALLEN’S daughter, has picked up some ideas from other young Neighbourhood Heroes and is putting them into practice. I’ll be writing a column on her soon.

The oldest Neighbourhood Hero in attendance was 90 year old, LAURA JOHNSTONE, a retired schoolteacher who is still tutoring children and adults. Unfortunately ninety four year old, LORNA PENTZ, was unable to get over from Gabriola Island but BILL and PAM PINEO, Laura and I will be going over to visit her this spring.

I’ll have more to report next week but in short, it sure was a great party and it was proof positive that it’s not the one in a million heroes that make the difference in this world; it’s the millions of Neighbourhood Heroes.