Editor: In 2006, the world around me had become just too much for my sensitive person to handle anymore. Homelessness, drugs, prostitution, violence, crime — my neighbourhood was being abused.

I sat down at my kitchen table and spent the next 60 hours handwriting a proposal (with a map of my neighbourhood) to the City of Langley.

A couple of days later I looked down into my apartment yard, and saw a man in a uniform surveying the surrounding parking lot. He looked like a a policeman or someone scary and official. I thought I was going to be arrested for speaking up.

My biggest fear turned out to be one of Langley’s biggest angels, Gary Johnson of the Salvation Army.

The Gateway of Hope will be open soon, and when it does I already know I personally will break down and cry tears of gratitude for the great acts of kindness that I have been privileged to have personally received from so many, for so many, for many years to come.

You can’t buy pride, dignity and self-esteem. To see and feel firsthand how compassion and empathy can turn pain and suffering into hope and inspiration makes me the richest, luckiest person I know.

When Rick Hansen rolls down a wheelchair accessible sidewalk, I wonder if he gets goose bumps and quietly thinks “I did that.”

I hope so, he deserves to feel this special glow.

So do you Langley. — all of you, for your great act of kindness. Thank you for the Gateway of Hope. Thank you.

If you recognize your name in this list, would you please take this moment to proudly glow — you deserve it: Gary, Sharla, Peter, Gordon, Rich, Mary, Maureen, Lucy, Craig, Frank — and the list glows on.

Linda Jean Shaw,

Langley