For more than 35 years, Annette Jensen has dedicated her life to serving her community.
“People are more powerful than their circumstances,” said Jensen, the 2021-2022 recipient of Santiam Service Integration’s Surfboard Award. “They have an inner greatness inside them that most have not tapped into yet. Many of us have similar backgrounds, but it is what we choose to do with those experiences that determines what our life will be.”
The youngest of six children raised in Sublimity, Jensen considers helping people her life’s purpose. She set her eyes on helping others and never looked back.
“There was an ad back in the day, ‘we don’t make surfboards, we make them strong,’” said Melissa Baurer, Integrated Health and Outreach Coordinator for Santiam Hospital & Clinics. “Like the surfboard, Service Integration doesn’t provide the direct service but we bring providers, community members, businesses together to make the community stronger.”
The Surfboard Award was started in 2019 to honor a SIT member who makes the program stronger, elevates the meetings, and maintains the integrity of the program. The first winner was Colleen Bradford with the Department of Human Services, Self Sufficiency.
Jensen gets to keep the trophy – a full-size surfboard representing strength – for one year before handing it off to the 2022-2023 recipient.
Inspired by her grandmother, Jensen volunteered to help at the community nursing home. She became a paid employee four years later.
In her previous role as housing resource developer for Marion County Health and Human Services, Jensen helped those in health department programs find safe and affordable housing. Through that professional role she learned about the Service Integration Team.
Baurer credited Jensen with becoming an outstanding member over the last five years.
“Annette is someone you can count on,” Baurer said. “She commits and follows through, she gets things done, she is persistent when she needs to be… you want Annette in your corner. She understands Service Integration and embraces the model.”
“I am never surprised by the outpouring of compassion that members, whether they are social service organizations, churches, neighbors or businesses, display in solving needs by the time the meeting has ended,” Jensen said. “Usually with the collaboration of everyone’s efforts, little to no SIT funds have to be utilized. SIT is a true meaning of the word community.”
When the 2020 Labor Day wildfires ravaged the Santiam Canyon, Jensen stepped up. She played a vital role in helping to immediately house over 50 households, according to Baurer.
“Annette was at the doorstep of Santiam Service Integration wanting to know what we needed help with, how she could be part of the response,” she said.
