Help us honor Good Neighbor

The annual Spokesman-Review Good Neighbor Contest has been a tradition for 16 years. This year’s contest is now under way, so we’re looking for nominations of neighbors who stand head and shoulders above the crowd.

It’s as easy to know a good neighbor when you see one as it is to recognize a bad one. A good neighbor is one who mows the lawn of the widow down the street or waters the grass for a resident who’s sick. A good neighbor will fetch the mail when you can’t and shovel the walk when nature dumps a foot of fluffy white stuff down.

Maybe your neighbor organizes a block party every year or lets all the kids in the neighborhood use her pool. Maybe he’s the neighborhood handyman who always has his tool belt ready to go.

Often these neighbors do their good deeds in silence, with no desire for payment beyond the occasional batch of homemade cookies. But we believe that such acts of kindness deserve to be recognized. We can’t send them on a vacation to the Bahamas, but we can cater a block party in their honor and give them a plaque recognizing their contribution to the community.

Every year winners of previous contests help pick a new winner. This year, as always, we’ll have three winners – a North Side resident, a South Side resident and someone living in the Valley.

It can be hard to choose among the nominations we read, so if you previously wrote in to nominate someone who didn’t win, feel free to try again. Maybe this is the year that their good deeds will set them apart from the pack.

This contest wouldn’t work without the participation from our readers, so we’re counting on you to take a few moments to tell us about your neighbor. Be specific. Tell us what they do to help you or others in your neighborhood. Tell us why they should be the one chosen for recognition. And tell us in 250 words or less before Aug. 11.