- Awarded on: April 20, 1999
Grete Roggenburg (deceased), Westmount, Que.
Governor General's Caring Canadian Award
In 1951, Grete Roggenburg began her long volunteering career at the old Western Hospital, where she worked in the patients' library and the coffee shop. She moved the library to the new Montréal General Hospital in 1955 and continued working there until 1964 when she took time off to care for her sick husband. After his death, she returned to volunteer in the Medical Records Department, the Rheumatology and Pain Clinics, the Test Centre and in the Hospitality Corner. In 1978, she created and ran the Sunday Shop Service at the Hospitality Corner, with a team of volunteers she recruited, for more than seventeen years.