David Aldridge Named 2019 Tigard’s First Citizen
David Aldridge has been named as the 2019 recipient of the Tigard’s First Citizen award. This award recognizes someone who has made in-depth, long-term volunteer contributions to the Tigard community over the years. The winner is active, involved, interested and enthusiastic about making Tigard a nice place to live and work. This individual excels in any area of unpaid endeavor of education, social services, youth work, and community improvement of public services. This award is given in the spirit of all volunteers who remain unknown. The recipient joins the ranks of those previously honored in continually striving to improve the Tigard Area.
David Aldridge’s contributions to the Tigard community have covered a wide range of activities and organizations including the Good Neighbor Center, Tigard CERT, St. Anthony Severe Weather Shelter, the American Red Cross, Coffee Creek Women’s Correctional Facility, the Pumper Car, church, and general community service. All of these areas of volunteerism have a common theme of helping those in greatest need. He has selflessly given thousands of hours of service across our community.
This includes 20 years as a weekly overnight host at the Good Neighbor Center Family Homeless Shelter in Tigard, sleeping on a couch 1 night each week to ensure the safety and security of Good Neighbor Center families, and enabling the agency to run cost effectively. In addition to his service in this aspect, David is currently serving and has been on the Board of Directors for the Good Neighbor Center for the last 6 years.
Keeping his focus on the community of Tigard, David has been a member of the Tigard Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) for over 10 years, helping his community and neighbors be better prepared in the event of a serious natural or other local disaster. CERT is entirely volunteer run and is a program of the City of Tigard.
David also serves as a volunteer staffer for Saint Anthony’s “severe weather shelter” for the homeless, often helping to stay overnight (and more) as a volunteer host. Though not a member of the Catholic Church himself, he believes in what St. Anthony’s is doing and has given countless hours over last 5 years in support of their work on many occasions.
Continuing in his spirit of giving and service, David is also personally a member of the “Ten+ Gallons Given Club” with the Red Cross where he’s donated over 12 gallons of blood/platelets. This equates to over 96 pints of blood!
Although this next service takes place in our neighboring community of Tualatin, Oregon, David for many years has served at the Coffee Creek Women’s Correctional Facility on a weekly basis, overseeing an addiction recovery in-service program for the female inmates. Coffee Creek is the only Women’s Correctional facility in the state so it services all communities. This is an unpaid community service position requiring him to be at the prison three times each week. He has been providing this service for several years now and is the only volunteer that shows up rain or shine, even in the snow, week-in-and-week-out and on holidays.
David also gives a great deal of church and general community service through JustServe.org and more, visiting the elderly in the area, assisting with addiction recovery programs and meetings, emergency preparedness, community education, and more. He has a greeter and supporter at the City of Tigard Community Preparedness Fair since the beginning.
David helped raise a significant amount of funding to support a local Tigard company, Columbia Inland, manufacturer of The Pumper Car, an FDA approved medical physical therapy device enabling patients of all ages, but especially special needs children, who suffer from autism, down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and many other maladies, to be able to exercise and improve their coordination and conditioning in some extraordinary ways.
Last but not least, David was awarded the Tigard Shining Stars “From the Heart” Volunteer of the Year award in 2013.
As you can see David has engaged at a broad level across the Tigard community on behalf of the community. It is obvious he cares deeply about the place that he lives and its vulnerable community members. In all his roles he is always selflessly looking out for the betterment of the community at large.
Please join us in congratulating David on his award and thanking him for his service to our Tigard community. His award will be formally presented with other Tigard volunteer and business awards at Tigard’s 2019 Shining Stars Community Awards Gala being held on Friday, May 3rd, from 5:30-9 p.m. at Embassy Suites – Washington Square, our event location host. With a theme of travel, this elegant themed event includes a silent auction, dinner, dessert dash, awards and more. Tickets are $60 per person. Get ready to travel the world and join us to celebrate Tigard!
For further details about the Tigard Shining Stars Community Awards Gala, please contact the Tigard Chamber of Commerce at 503-639-1656 or at Jessica@tigardchamber.org, or go to our website at www.Tigardchamber.org.