Whether you realize it or not, it's likely there are people living near you, possibly in your neighborhood, who do great service for other people without looking for any recognition.

All I have to do is walk to the end of my driveway to find two people like this. I have two neighbors who are at different ends of the political spectrum and who live their lives differently from each other in many ways. But they are the same when it comes to making a difference in the lives of other people.

Some time ago, I found out that one of them, Todd Melet, volunteers with the Red Cross as a Disaster Action Team captain.

After arriving at a disaster, Todd's role is to assess the situation and provide Red Cross services such as food, shelter, clothing, referrals to partner agencies and, at times, mental health assistance. He always works with at least one more Red Cross team member.

I asked Todd if he had any gripping stories about his work. Since he started in 2003, he's been to about 30 fires, and two particularly stood out.

"A few years back, I arrived at a fire out in the country," he said. "The home was flattened; all you could see was the oven and fireplace. Standing out front was a woman wearing nothing but a large sheriff's T-shirt, no shoes, nothing, and a baby in a dirty diaper, no clothes. They stood in front of the gutted home, and she was sobbing."

On another occasion, he went to a fire in which a toddler who had been left home alone had died. He said, "The mother was the most distraught I have ever seen a person, when she learned of her son's death."

When I asked him why he provides the service that he does, he replied that his goal was "helping people that are in the highest level of need."

My other neighbor, Vic Cocowitch, works with a project called "From Houses to Homes," an organization in Guatemala that builds simple homes for families that don't have adequate housing. In 2000, he built his first house. Over the past 10 years, he has built seven houses, including one with his son Kyle.

Vic and his family also support some of the children in the families he builds the houses for by helping them get an education. All five girls from the family who live in the first house he built have graduated from high school, and three have started studying at a university in Guatemala, thanks to Vic's generosity.

After he built a house one time for a family, he and his own family decided to get them a house-warming gift. He asked one of the Guatemalan men he worked with what would be best and was surprised when the family asked for shoes. So he arranged a time for them to all go pick out some shoes together, and he had a great time doing it.

"We made assumptions about what they needed, through our lenses of how we see the world," Vic said."But when we see things from their point of view, we need to take care of the basics such as shoes and food."

When I asked why he does what he does, Vic replied, "I do it because I think it's very gratifying to give the gift of service to other people. It's especially rewarding to see the transformation that occurs in the families' lives as a result of building a new home and supporting their children to attend school."

If the two men at the end of my driveway are willing to give so much to others, there must be many more people in our community who do the same thing. They both deserve great credit for what they do, and so do all the others like them.