Neighbor of the Year: Joan Moser

Joan Moser (left), presents a Thank You card to Scout Workshop owners Heather Rose-Dunning (center), and Kim Batcheller (right), for donating use of their facility to the Food Share program.

In 2018, LHENA began issuing neighborhood awards at its annual meeting to recognize the good work of dedicated individuals in our community. Wedge neighbors submit nominations to the board of directors for the final vote.

Our 2020-21 neighbor of the year is a longtime LHENA resident and has been helping residents in the Wedge with many different programs and committees. She is as involved as a neighbor can be. She is humble, organized, a hard worker, cooperative and kind. This year's LHENA Neighbor of the Year award goes to the very deserving Joan Moser.

Here is what Wedge neighbors had to say about Joan:

Joan pulled us together in countless ways to create community and address deep yet unspoken needs. She was the lead organizer for two big projects were the LHENA Food Share and the Restaurant Fan Club. Joan organized tirelessly around helping people during the pandemic. She has helped to make sure help is getting to our most vulnerable neighbors and local businesses.

Joan has boundless energy and assistance at her fingertips for whatever you need it for. She can pull together the impossible within hours. She isn't afraid to ask for what the neighborhood needs and figures out how to get it every single time. Whenever she is on a project, you know we're in good hands and she helps to make the time we spend together fun.  

Everyone she works with is impressed by how well the programs are coordinated as I have shown up to help sort the food.

She has gone above and beyond to set up a program that serves those in the Wedge community struggling from the pandemic. Has continued to maintain and improve the program.  

The Food Share is an incredible project, reaching so many neighbors with an essential need! The incredibly organized way it has unfolded is simply astounding - volunteers in all kinds of categories and capacities that fit each person's skills/abilities - and the feeling of coming together to accomplish something truly meaningful, each of us doing a small (and for some people, like our neighbor of the year, not-so-small!) part, is incredible. She has made neighbors so grateful and proud to be a small part of this project!  

Joan is a force of nature! She has brought so many neighbors together to help each other in a wide variety of ways.  The food share is the most well known of her projects, and the way it has grown into such a huge service is amazing, with so many volunteers coming together and so many neighbors receiving low-cost quality food! Joan also connects neighbors to help with small tasks, and her newest project, the Restaurant Fan Club, is a great idea to help local independent businesses - truly to support the livelihoods that depend partly on our neighborhood - that also brings an aspect of lighthearted and social fun, true connection, to our neighbors, during a time that has been challenging for all of these things.  Joan is amazing!

Led an amazing program that has helped so many neighbors and also started another program to show support for our small business neighbors.  

Joan Moser has been my neighbor for close to 30 years. I couldn’t ask for a better one. She is wonderful, responsive, kind and a master cake baker. It’s difficult to imagine us getting through this pandemic  without her leadership, organizing and communications skills.  Or  getting through the park planning process without her. 

A few of Joan's many contributions:

• Founded Friends of Mueller Park in 2019, which developed surveys and organized volunteers to get input on their vision for Mueller Park, made beautiful maps for us to imagine different ways the park could be used. She represented many neighbors during the planning process at the park planning meetings.  She was the voice of reason, building consensus for the use of the park where everyone won. And she saved the oldest tree in the park. She followed through with recommendations from the survey and submitted a request to the Park Board for more seating and a Little Free Library in the Park.  She keeps it going.
• Founded and organized the LHENA Food Share. During a time that many of us felt isolated, she created a way for us to help each other and build community and be generous. She organized it beautifully and created a community of caring. 
• Founded the LHENA Restaurant Fan Club. Many restaurants in the neighborhood were struggling, and many us were feeling isolated. Joan provided an opportunity to get to know new neighbors, create a sense of community, have fun and support our local small businesses.
• She has been the host for the Bryant and Colfax National Night Out for decades and has maintained a list of neighbors on both blocks so we can stay in touch with each other. 
• She is a founding member of Neighbors Helping Neighbors. It’s been amazing to see the mutual aid and generosity. It’s so very Joan. She brings out the best in people and the neighborhood. 
  

• She has been on the Environmental Committee for several years and has been involved in the plantings and weddings around the swimming pool. 
• She has also been involved in the Neighborhood Clean Ups for years and the late fall Leaf Clean Ups. 
• Since early on in the Covid 19 pandemic she has been an integral member of the team to make sure people in the Wedge and surrounding neighborhoods who need food get a delivery of good food once a week. As a Master Water Steward she has unclogged countless storm water drains on her walks through out the neighborhood.  

Congratulations, Joan, on your well deserved recognition as Neighbor of the Year from your fellow community members!