Northern People: Neighbors watch out for each other

Northern Living

Related Photos

Mike and Julie Gaines stand outside their Madison Street home with their children Cooper, 2, Molly, 8, and Thomas, 9, and the snow fort they built after this weekend's snowstorm. Record-Eagle/Jan-Michael Stump

March 10, 2012

Northern People: Neighbors watch out for each other

Storm brings out many helping hands

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS mdrahos@record-eagle.com The Record Eagle Sat Mar 10, 2012, 07:14 AM EST

TRAVERSE CITY-- You could find them in every neighborhood and community hit by last weekend's powerful snowstorm: neighbors helping neighbors, strangers helping strangers.

On Madison Street, the Gaines family began checking up on their neighbors the morning after their block lost power late Friday night.

"Mike (Gaines) shoveled out seven neighbors on Saturday and went house to house on my block making sure everyone was OK and inviting everyone to his house," said Abbie Nelson, a neighbor across the street who took the family up on their offer to spend the night with her pound dog, Larry. "Julie (Gaines) made cinnamon rolls on the gas stove, which is better than I could do, and brought hot chocolate to me. There were hamburgers Saturday night and on Sunday morning Mike made oatmeal for breakfast. They're just really kind-hearted."

Julie Gaines, a part-time dietary support staffer at a nursing care facility, made sure older neighbors had their medications close at hand so they wouldn't have to stumble around for them in the dark. Son Thomas, 9, helped haul wood to fuel the family's fireplace for neighbors who stopped by while daughter Molly, 8, helped deliver hot meals and water to those who stayed home.

"We live in a neighborhood of a lot of elderly who live alone," Julie Gaines said. "The storm gives you a greater appreciation for the old folks. They can't get around in that. I'm sure the city would step up too, but it's the neighborhood that needs to take care of people."

Mike Gaines, who is uncomfortable in the spotlight, said it was just one small way to pay back the neighbors for their help over the years, from baby-sitting to offering fresh fruit from their trees and fish from their nets.

"We raised small kids for years with their help and this is one day or a couple of days we could try to pay them back," said Gaines, a Realtor and president of the Slabtown Neighborhood Association.

This isn't the first time the family has helped out neighbors in need, Nelson said.

"Mike has helped me before when my car died, and with my garage door," she said. "He just does things. Nobody has to ask him."

Gaines said being neighborly is something he learned from his parents, at Sunday school and in Cub Scouts, and from living for a time on a farm, where "many hands make light work."

"You had to chip in," he said, "and you always had to have a good sense of self-sufficiency."

He said the couple try to instill in their own children, including 3-year-old Cooper, the importance of watching out for the neighbors and each other.

"There's only so much you can teach kids, and a lot more they learn from your example and from recall," he said.

Julie Gaines said the storm was a way to bring the neighborhood together, something that doesn't happen as often as it could in many neighborhoods these days.

"The most fun was the people out walking around, checking on everyone, walking to Munson (an emergency warming shelter site) to get coffee," she said. "One of the (neighbors') wife is a doctor, and she snowshoed to work."

The Gaineses found time for their own fun, too. Their front yard boasts a giant snow fort Mike Gaines said won't melt any time soon.