Introducing Brian Rolek and the West Des Moines Patch Good Neighbor Award

Brian Rolek comes to the Walnut Creek YMCA each morning with lunch in his hand, a smile on his face and a quiet determination in his heart: Nobody, but nobody, is going work harder than he does — or have a better attitude while doing it.

Rolek is a star example for the other employees — and the members who stream in from Windsor Heights, West Des Moines and Urbandale — of a person who gives back to the community, who gives his all for the benefit of others.

Simply put, he's the perfect example of a good neighbor.

That’s why we chose him as the winner of our first West Des Moines Good Neighbor Award.

“I like my job because I help make a lot of people happy,” Rolek says of his work caring for the Y’s equipment and of his friendliness to members. “My job helps them to exercise, and gets them to like exercising.”

Rolek was the perfect choice because we’ve seen him work, know his attitude and we wanted to hold up a star to show you the kind of people we’ll be asking you to nominate for upcoming Good Neighbor Awards. Somebody you know deserves to be recognized — and win $50 from Patch, just a little thank you for making our community that much better.

We have a ton of good neighbors out there, so starting next week, we’ll be asking you to nominate them for the award.

Maybe it’s a non-profit employee who always gives that extra 10 percent above the 100 that’s asked; maybe it’s a youth coach who sacrifices his or her weekends to boost your child; maybe it’s a business leader who’s interested in the community at least as much as in profits. Maybe it's just someone who goes out of the way to help in whatever little or big way possible.

We’ll explain how to nominate people next week. In the meantime, think about who’s been a good neighbor in our community and deserves a little -- at least a little -- thank you.