Martha Goralka is the 2022 Antioch Citizen of the Year for Most Impact
Antioch Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Daniel Sohn read the following about 2022 Citizen of the Year Most Impact, Martha Goralka during the annual Gala Friday, March 24, 2023.
“When you need help or assistance, we are always told to look for someone who is ‘busy’. Over the years, Martha Goralka is not only someone who is ‘busy’, but she knows how to get it done and does it correctly.
She is a 50 plus year member of the League of Women Voters. She has served as a past president, past co-president and for the past six years has served as the Voter Service Co-Chair in charge of candidate forums and Roundtables, as well as a variety of duties.
As a 34-year member of the Rotary Club of the Delta/Antioch, she was Charter president in 1989 and carries a perfect attendance record.
She participated in building casitas in San Luis Rio Colorado, delivered wheelchairs in Mexico City and Monterey, Mexico. Worked the ‘Polio Plus Vaccination Day’ for children in India as well as visiting Rotary projects in Uganda and Zambia, Africa. She has participated in ‘Home Team’ projects doing minor repairs for seniors, Meals on Wheels deliveries, Bedford Center pandemic deliveries and much more.
Other areas she has tirelessly worked in: Chapter QS of the P.E.O. Sisterhood raising money for women’s scholarships, grants, loans and a woman’s college, the Antioch Chamber of Commerce both as an employee and a volunteer, Delta Learning Center, Antioch Schools Education Foundation, Arts & Cultural Foundation of Antioch, the PTA, the Bond Oversight Committee and the list goes on and on.
At this Gala, we celebrate you tonight, Martha. Thank you for all you have achieved over the years.”
“Others I’ve worked with seem to believe ‘Martha really doesn’t do anything she just shows up.’ I’ve come to think of myself as a catalyst that everything else happens around,” Goralka said. “In Antioch people donate their time, their treasure and their talent.”
She said when she first started at the Antioch Ledger newspaper, she met “Leo Fontana who has been an inspiration.”
“Antioch is a big, small town. Everybody seems to know everybody else,” Goralka continued.
She said she met her husband, Joe through their participation in Rotary.
“My whole family has been behind me, and I so appreciate it,” said Goralka.
She volunteers most of her time at the Delta Learning Center she shared.
“There are so many of you that I know and wanted to mention,” Goralka added.
Allen D. Payton contributed to this report which first appeared in the April/May print edition.
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