NEIGHBORS SHARE FOOD, PLANTS, JOYS OF LIFE

For more than 25 years, the residents of Rodney Vista in Cape Girardeau have been looking out for one another.

The neighbors do everything from odd jobs around the home and yard to running errands or sharing meals.

People need someone to look out for them, said Louise Skaggs, who's lived in the neighborhood for years.

Sometimes Skaggs will come home from an errand and find a present on her doorstep. Recently it was a sack of apples and two frog statuettes.

"You don't do stuff just for everybody to know," Skaggs said.

Sometimes Skaggs will never know who left her presents, but then she has left her fair share of presents on doorsteps too.

While Skaggs admits to being a picky eater, she doesn't mind sharing her love of cooking. She particularly likes to fix chicken and dumplings so she often makes more than enough to share. "None of them like to cook like I do," she said.

A neighbor, Ed Austin, who helps Skaggs tend her yard, doesn't accept any payments. "What he likes is the food that I give him," she said.

John Smothers, another neighbor of Skaggs, helps her plant a garden every year. Actually, he does much of the planting and purchasing himself. "I don't even know what's back there," Skaggs said.

But it's not just the neighbors on Rodney Vista who benefit from Skaggs' kindnesses. She often drives friends from First Baptist Church to services each week.

And sometimes she drives friends and neighbors to appointments or to the grocery store. She never accepts any payments, she said, because what she does is about friendship.

"I couldn't do without my friends and neighbors," she said. "They're so much a part of my life."