Neighbourhood Heroes are people whose lives lived are a lesson for us all. Today's column will focus on four seniors. First, Vicki Evers nominated her father, Wally Griffths, because of the active lifestyle he lived well into his seventies.

Griffiths worked at Woodward's in downtown Vancouver until he retired. He enjoyed badminton, tennis and cycling as a younger man, joined a recreational hiking group in his fifties and sixties and later graduated to mountain climbing.

Perhaps Griffiths was more active than most but all in all, he was a pretty average guy. Average in many ways including the fact that he had a couple of unmet goals, dreams that never became a reality because he had to provide for a family. When he was 71, he no longer had those responsibilities ... but he still had the dreams. So he packed his ice pick and flew to Mount Everest where he climbed two stations above base camp.

Then a few months after his return from Nepal, Griffiths set out to accomplish his second unmet dream, to cycle across Canada. He was 73 when he dipped the front wheel of his bicycle into the Atlantic Ocean.

Barry Snetzinger can't remember the name of his neighbour of 15 years ago but he has vivid memories of his accomplishments. This guy couldn't wait to retire, Snitzinger says. He was a tinkerer. He loved bringing old things back to life, tinkering, rebuilding and painting. He couldn't wait to retire so he could spend all of his days in his shop. Finally the day came.

For the next two years, he was the happiest guy on the block but then the wheels fell off, so to speak. He had tinkered with, fixed and repaired everything he owned, his kids owned and his neighbours owned. He started to feel old, bored and useless. Then someone gave him a little red wagon and his life changed.

Soon, every garbage day morning, Snetzinger's neighbour scoured the streets looking for things that could be tinkered with, fixed and repaired. It didn't take long for the neighbours to catch on. They began setting fixable things aside for him.

And the story doesn't stop there. The last Saturday of every month, Snetzinger's neighbour had a garage sale ... and gave the proceeds to charity. So that's how he spent the rest of his life, contributing to the recycling effort in his neighbourhood, keeping busy doing something he loved to do and, at the same time, supporting a variety of charities.

Speaking about supporting charities, Susan Mielke recently nominated Dave Wright a retired lawyer and member of her church as a Neighbourhood Hero. Wright loves to garden. Some time ago, he started arranging bunches of his flowers to sell at church. Of course the proceeds go to church sponsored charities.

For our final story, Bruce Mitchell recently nominated a man he has never met but who he saw every morning for years as he drove to work. Like many other people, this senior got his exercise by going for a walk each morning. The difference was, he took a plastic bag along to pick up any garbage he found on his way. Mitchell says this man's route had to be among the cleanest streets in Nanaimo.