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Sure seems to be award season in the Tri-Valley, judging by the press releases coming into my inbox in recent weeks.
It’s hard to keep up with all of this community news, but stay with me as I do my best.
The Pleasanton Community of Character Collaborative on Sunday announced two families, one resident and one nonprofit as the winners of its 2025 Juanita Haugen Awards.
Retired health care professional Gretchen Kyle has found a second “career” calling through her charity organization Big Bay Ray, which collects recycled grain bags that volunteers wash and sew into shopping bags, bottle carriers, baby bibs and more to be resold at area stores to support other local causes.
The Gillette family (parents Audrey and Bryan and sons Colin and Decker) “have made it a priority to stay actively involved in their community” — a long list that includes Cycling for Civics, Kids Against Hunger, school district and city efforts, and even volunteering in Europe at a refugee camp and foster school early after war broke out in Ukraine.
With a history of giving back in their community, parents Steve and Mannie Nimmo and daughter Samantha refocused their efforts to mental health and suicide prevention in the wake of personal tragedy and created their Z-Cares Foundation, which is named in honor of their late son/brother Zachary.
And this year’s organizational recipient is the Pleasanton Partnerships in Education Foundation, which fundraises to support Pleasanton’s public schools.
The Juanita Haugen Award winners will be honored at a luncheon ceremony May 14 at the Pleasanton Veterans Memorial Building.
The event will also recognize the recipients of the group’s 2025 Juanita Haugen Memorial Scholarships.
Those students include the aforementioned Colin Gillette and his Amador Valley High School classmates Sagana Chattanathan, Taylor Cohn, Hope Fisher and Mateo Molina, as well as Foothill High seniors Aahana Biswal, Anisha Dan, Carina Montague and Crystal Wang.
In other marquee award news, the city of Dublin not long ago celebrated the winners of its Volunteer Recognition Awards with a ceremony at the Shannon Community Center.
The list featured Daniel Colley as Citizen of the Year, Suhani Gupta as Young Citizen of the Year, Sensory Wall, Inc. as Organization of the Year, Susan Yan Tang as Mayor’s Award winner and Alameda County Fire division chief Bonnie Terra for the Mayor’s Legacy Award.
Just over a week later, Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group CEO Katie Marcel earned the Women Making a Difference – Innovation Award at the East Bay Women’s Conference.
“This recognition highlights Katie’s unwavering commitment to innovation, from transforming Livermore’s downtown into a vibrant destination to leading a dynamic business organization that drives the innovation economy. As CEO of ITV, Katie exemplifies innovation leadership every day, serving as a catalyst for solutions to some of our region’s most pressing challenges,” ITV Board Chair Stephanie Beasly, a Sandia National Laboratories executive, said in a statement.
Maybe not an award, per se, but Chabot-Las Positas Community College District last month called out that its OSHA Training Institute Education Center received certification from the International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training.
Recently, Ben McEntee let me know that fellow longtime Pleasanton resident and Saint Mary’s College alumnus Neil Sweeney – the founding principal of Foothill High School — was bestowed the SMC Golden Gael Award as part of the Moraga college’s 2025 Distinguished Alumni Awards program.
Former U.S. Olympian and gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi, who has lived in Alamo for years, is set to receive the Legendary Storyteller award at the Silicon Valley Community Media’s 2nd annual Asian American Stories Video Contest Gala on May 1.
Speaking of galas, I’m set to again represent our Embarcadero Media Foundation at the California News Publishers Association’s California Journalism Awards ceremony on May 17 in Universal City. Can’t wait to see how the Pleasanton Weekly and the rest of our seven news publications make out.
Hopefully our haul can rival what the Alameda County Fair brought home from the International Association of Fairs and Expositions and Western Fairs Association competitions – 34 awards in all, including 13 first-place honors.
The awards notices continue to come in fast and furious. Just as I was putting this column together, I received word of who won the coveted 2025 Ed Kinney Community Patriot Awards. We’ll have to wait for next week’s paper on that one…
Editor’s note: Jeremy Walsh is the editorial director for the Embarcadero Media Foundation’s East Bay Division. His “What a Week” column is a recurring feature in the Pleasanton Weekly, Livermore Vine and DanvilleSanRamon.com.
