Mr. Reliable

There are 10 houses and one duplex on the 1100 block of East Wabash Avenue. Nine of the households are managed by single mothers, most raising children no older than kindergarten age. There are adult males living in three homes.

Chris Lund, a 34-year-old soft-spoken assembly line worker, is one of those men. To 29-year-old Vickie Mendenhall, Lund is her friend, companion, live-in partner and the man raising her young son. To the neighbors, Lund is a landscaper, auto mechanic, pet sitter, barbecue chef and most of all, Mr. Reliable.

For all his kindness and good deeds, Lund has been chosen the 2005 North Side Good Neighbor. He will receive a catered block party and a commemorative plaque.

“I didn’t think I did that much,” Lund said with a surprised expression while reading letters of praise signed by 10 neighbors.

Lund was raised by his aunt and uncle in Rosalia, Wash., and moved to Spokane after high school. Mendenhall and her 5½-year-old son, Tyler, have lived on East Wabash for about five years. Lund and Mendenhall met through Mendenhall’s mom (although Mendenhall’s mom originally tried to set up Lund with her daughter’s best friend). They have been a family for four years. The couple are trying to buy the small two-bedroom home they rent, which also is home for three dogs and five cats. The setup doesn’t seem that unusual because Mendenhall works as an adoption counselor at SpokAnimal C.A.R.E.

Lund said he learned about compassion from his uncle Larry Lund, a Baptist minister. Many of his neighbors feel he’s gone beyond the call of duty.

“There isn’t anything he would not do for anyone or anything (human or animal),” Tiffaney Osborne wrote in her nomination letter.

When Osborne and her 6-year-old daughter, Makayla, moved into a duplex across the street, it wasn’t long before Lund showed Osborne how to change the oil in her car. When the weather turned hot, Lund lent Osborne an air conditioner, easing her health problems. He lugged it up the steps and installed it in a living room window.

“(He) could have very well saved me from a real bad situation and for that I am so grateful for his kindness,” Osborne wrote.

When a neighbor’s lawn gets ragged, Lund is apt to cut it without asking. If someone’s car tire goes flat, Lund likely is around to change it. If someone’s car dies, Lund may have the know-how to revive it.

“If you look around,” Lund said while lounging on a worn chair on his front lawn, “90 percent of the people around here are women or single parents. They don’t have the time to change a tire.”

Lund is equally considerate to pets.

“When he walks down the street,” one neighbor wrote, “he looks like the pied piper with a string of dogs and cats following him and their little boy (Tyler).”

When Lund isn’t helping neighbors, he and Mendenhall may be cooking for them. Their house has become the community hangout for neighborly events such as summer barbecues and yard sales. Recently, they organized a community yard sale that was a fund-raiser for SpokAnimal. Although unsold toys and the usual things found at yard sales still sit in the yard, it’s only a matter of time before Lund gets to work on removing them.

“Our whole block is a better and safer place largely because of this good neighbor, Chris,” the neighbors wrote.