2024 Citizen of the Year Award
The Rotary Club of Christiansburg-Blacksburg recently presented its 2024 Citizen of the Year Award to Dr. John Galbraith at their April 8 meeting.
The Citizen of the Year Award honors a non-Rotarian whose voluntary acts and services have made the Christiansburg-Blacksburg area a better place in which to live. Galbraith’s life of volunteerism and service has unquestionably improved lives throughout the New River Valley and beyond. He is an outstanding example of the Rotary motto of Service Above Self.
Galbraith is a Professor in the Virginia Tech School of Plant and Environmental Sciences where he teaches nine courses, researches wetlands, and works with Virginia Cooperative Extension in the area of Soil Sciences. He also coaches the Virginia Tech Soil Judging Team which is the second most successful collegiate judging team in the
nation with six overall national championships and four individual national champions. Students have gone on to be members of the US Soil Judging Team and Galbraith has been the coach of that team as well.
In his spare time, Galbraith is the Director of the New River Valley Glean Team; a quality control volunteer and organizer for Sleep in Heavenly Peace in the NRV; and a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity in his hometown of San Antonio, Texas. He participates in the ministries of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Blacksburg including His Hands, which helps elderly and disabled parishioners with home repairs, the flower ministry which helps to fund other church outreach, and Youth Group projects including sending cards and books to a prison in Texas.
Galbraith volunteers for Virginia Tech’s Big Plant and Big Event and has helped Historic Smithfield remove invasive trees and old fencing and then replant native trees. As one of his friends and fellow St. Mary’s volunteers, Rick DiSalvo said, “almost without fail, one of the first people to raise his hand to volunteer is John.”
In 2012, Dr. Galbraith co-founded the NRV Glean Team ministry at St. Mary’s Catholic Church with Christy Gabbard, Mike Quinn, Marilyn Galbraith, Dick Neves, and Harriet Shaw to deliver fresh foods to organizations that serve the hungry. The Glean Team, a group of 75-100 volunteers, does this by gleaning excess foods from local farms during harvest season to prevent waste; growing foods in local gardens at St. Mary’s, Historic Smithfield, Northside Presbyterian Church, and Hale Community Garden, and at St. Mary’s high tunnel; and hosting a potato drop delivering 50,000lbs of potatoes in the fall and winter. The NRV Glean Team has grown significantly since its beginnings of gleaning a few thousand pounds of fresh food. Much of this growth has been due to Galbraith’s vision. As Mike Quinn said, “when John says, ‘What do you think of….?’ It means he has already conceptualized the idea and has a plan.”
Last year, the NRV Glean Team gave away about 217,000 pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables across Southwest Virginia and Southeast West Virginia, to the Monacan and Upper Mattaponi tribal food banks in Central Virginia, and in San Antonio, Texas. This is the equivalent of 650,000 servings of fruits and vegetables. In past years, over 75,000 eggs have been donated locally as well. The Glean Team also collects about $5,000 in donated seeds from big box stores to send to Haiti, New York City Parks, Detroit Community Gardens, First People’s Reservations in South Dakota and Arizona, and Virginia Cooperative Extension for use in school and community gardens. Seeds saved from winter squash are shared with the Society for Saint Andrew (the Gleaning Society).
Upon receiving the 2024 Citizen of the Year Award from the Rotary Club of Christiansburg-Blacksburg, Dr. Galbraith said, “I feel fortunate to have been put into a good place surrounded by and supported by (my wife) Marilyn and some very valuable volunteers.” Rick DiSalvo and Mike Quinn both noted that they didn’t know how he has time to do all that he does. Dr. Galbraith acknowledged that Marilyn does all of the little things for him and that “without Marilyn Galbraith, there wouldn’t be a successful John Galbraith.”
The Rotary Club of Christiansburg-Blacksburg has exemplified the Rotary motto of Service Above Self in the community for over 100 years. Local leadership recognition, youth development programs, and community service projects as well as participation in Rotary International programs such as PolioPlus exemplify this motto. For more information, find @ChristiansburgBlacksburgRotary on Facebook.
The Rotary Club of Christiansburg-Blacksburg