2022 Unsung Heroes

Meet Your Community’s Unsung Heroes for 2022!

We wrapped up 2022 by highlighting our community's Unsung Heroes. This was our 21st year of recognizing community members for their impactful volunteer efforts. Join the City in honoring those who selflessly volunteer their time, passion, and talents through community service, all of whom volunteer without seeking recognition for enriching our Lake Oswego community.

Caroline Glad

Caroline brings her love and her passion for our great city as an active volunteer with the Oswego Heritage House. Caroline’s charming and quiet demeanor has provided behind the scenes efforts to advance the preservation of Lake Oswego’s historical record. She has generated extensive, in-depth, original research and has brought lasting value to our City’s history with her numerous hours of volunteerism on a weekly basis. As a community, we are fortunate to have a volunteer like Caroline to preserve our history for the generations to come.

Adopt-a-Plot at Luscher Farm

Adopt-a-Plot program is made up of about 35 volunteers and for this growing season alone, contributed over 2,000 hours and grew, harvested and donated over 800lbs of fresh produce to the Hunger Fighters and the Meals on Wheels program, both local Lake Oswego based organizations. In addition to contributing the produce to community members in need, the Adopt-a-Plot program benefits educational programs for great learning and outdoor classroom experiences for youth and adults.

Steve Meyer

Steve’s volunteer efforts have reached not only the world of youth sports and activities, but also the classroom when he was supporting elementary students with math and reading. Some of you may be familiar with Steve as a youth basketball, baseball or soccer coach - the traditional sports. What you may not know is that he has been involved with a unicycle club and curling, and helped establish a disc golf club at Lakeridge Junior High School.  Our community is fortunate to have Steve lend his smile, warmth and encouragement that engages age groups across the city. 

Gretchen Moline

Eloquently stated by the staff at our Lake Oswego Public Library (LOPL), “…staff can’t stifle happy trills when Gretchen Moline walks through the doors…” Her volunteer hours have been tallied at one thousand twenty-seven hours since 2017. Yes, that is 1,027 hours. That does not include her many volunteer hours when Gretchen began with LOPL in the Children’s Library in 2006. With Gretchen’s skillset being far and wide, deep and high, she is known for being warm and approachable with a smile and gentle laugh that contributes to the welcoming atmosphere of the Children’s Library.

Lake Oswego High School Tech Support Club

This fairly new club of about a year and half has made an impression on our older community forming cross-generational opportunities. They started small with four students volunteering weekly on Sunday afternoons with the residents at The Stafford Retirement Community to address their tech support needs. The group has grown to over 20 members with residents emitting gratitude and appreciation about the wonderful support received and the support being delivered with genuine care, patience and understanding. This group of students is proving that they are a generation making a difference not only with tech support, but also relational skills and values.
 

Thank You to the recipients of this year’s Unsung Hero Award who make our Lake Oswego community a better place to live, work and play!

Photo: Lake Oswego's 2022 Unsung Heroes 
Left to right: Councilor Rachel Verdick, Michael Zhang, Riley O’Mara, Jack Tracey, Gretchen Moline, Beth Carr, Caroline Glad, Mayor Joe Buck. Not pictured: Steve Meyer