Juanita Haugen Community Service Awards Announced

Pleasanton’s Community of Character Collaborative has named Greg Thome, JoAnn Weser, Bill Rudolph and the Alan Hu Foundation as its 2026 Juanita Haugen Award recipients. (business.pleasanton.org) (patch.com) The recipients are scheduled to be honored at the group’s annual awards luncheon on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, at 11:30 a.m. at the Pleasanton Veterans Building. Tickets are listed at $45 and the event is open to the community. (business.pleasanton.org) (communityofcharacter.org) The luncheon will also recognize 14 Pleasanton Unified School District seniors receiving Juanita Haugen Memorial Scholarships. The announced scholarship recipients are Aashvi Geddam, Advaith Anand, Andy Morales, Anna Star Kim, Bruce Wallace, Chloe Grijalva, Diego Laredo, Emilio Bernard, Kyle Farren-Bowen, Lucie Apard, Marian McConologue, Marielle Bernard, Philippa Haney and Smriti Mehta. (business.pleasanton.org) (patch.com) The award is one of Pleasanton’s standing civic honors for volunteer service. The Collaborative says the program was established in 2008 to recognize residents who model responsibility, compassion, self-discipline, honesty, respect and integrity. (communityofcharacter.org) (business.pleasanton.org) Those values are tied directly to Juanita Haugen, the longtime Pleasanton school leader for whom the award is named. Haugen served nearly 30 years on the Pleasanton Board of Education, cofounded what became the Community of Character Collaborative, and died in 2007. (hacienda.org) (pleasantonweekly.com) This year’s announcement continues a broader push by the Collaborative to pair adult service awards with student recognition. The group says it awarded nine scholarships in 2025 and will award 14 in 2026, with this year’s scholarship amount set at $1,250. (hacienda.org) The Alan Hu Foundation, one of this year’s honorees, focuses on mental-health awareness, stigma reduction and support for psychiatric-disorder research. The Pleasanton-based nonprofit was also named a 2025 California Nonprofit of the Year by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan. (alanhufoundation.org) (causeiq.com) For Pleasanton, the May 13 event is less a one-day ceremony than an annual inventory of local volunteer work. This year’s list spans youth sports, civic service and mental-health advocacy under Haugen’s name. (business.pleasanton.org) (communityofcharacter.org)