SIMI VALLEY : Path to Mobility Is Gift of Caring Neighbors

Simi Valley resident Chris Lucas has been a prisoner in his own home since April.

Paralyzed from the waist down three months ago when a tumor caused his spinal cord to compress, Lucas, 57, now uses a wheelchair. But even with an electric lift, Lucas can’t leave his trailer in Simi Country Mobile Home Estates. His chair won’t roll over the grass walkway that leads to the road.

Early Saturday morning, a volunteer group called Caring Neighbor set out to give Lucas back his freedom.

Caring Neighbor is a Lutheran Social Services affiliate created to help Southern California’s poor, disabled and elderly remain self-sufficient. The local office opened in Simi Valley in February.

“We fill in the cracks,” said Pamela Schuman, program director for the Ventura County and Santa Barbara County region. “If someone is too arthritic to screw in a light bulb, we’ll go take care of it. . . . We allow people to retain their independence and dignity.”

Installing a cement walkway is a slightly heftier job than changing a light bulb. So Schuman first enlisted Caring Neighbor volunteer Bob Dreher, a 54-year-old retired electrician she nicknamed “Robin Hood,” because of his razor-sharp wit and vast repertoire of skills. On Tuesday, Schuman called the Kiwanis Club of Simi Valley to recruit “a few good men,” and by Wednesday, she had a seven-person crew.

“It’s going to be something else,” said Lucas, who watched from his porch as the procession of workers toting picks and shovels scooped out a 20-foot walkway in the patch of lawn. “All of a sudden, here they are. On a holiday weekend, too.”

Some of the volunteers said they’d turned out at 7:30 a.m. “to do something good for the community.” One said he just appreciated the chance to get together with other members. Dreher, wearing a T-shirt reading “I’m stuck on concrete” and standing in cement as he patted the mixture into the wire mesh, had yet another reason.

Dreher threw in the lumber and iron stakes to build the walkway. Caring Neighbor paid for the wire mesh, and the Kiwanis Club provided the labor and concrete for a job that normally would cost about $1,000.

By about 11:00 a.m., the volunteers finished pouring a neat cement path that zigzagged from Lucas’ stoop to the road.

“It’s going to be unbelievable, the freedom all of a sudden,” said Lucas, who now can attend the trailer park’s Fourth of July activities. The cement will be dry by Monday, and his portable elevator will be back in place. “I’ve got a lot of friends in the park I’m going to go visit. I can maybe start my life again.”