W. Andrew Boss will be honored with this year’s Saint Anthony Park Community Foundation Spirit of the Park Award at the annual neighborhood 4th of July celebration at Langford Park.

Boss has a long record of community involvement in local, state and national organizations. He has served as founder, trustee or board member of over 60 cultural, educational, governmental, human services, and philanthropic organizations. Since moving to St. Anthony Park in 1971 to become president of the St. Anthony Park Bank he has served on boards of the library, community council, Music in the Park Series, Block Nurse Program, Bugle, Saint Anthony Park Community Foundation, St. Anthony Park Association, St. Anthony Park Home, Lutheran Social Services and the Children’s Home Society.

Add to that the central role he has played as a member of the Port Authority, Riverfront Corporation, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, Historical Society, Friends of the Library, Minnesota Humanities Commission, Metropolitan State University, Northern Clay Center, COMPAS, The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Public Housing Agency of St. Paul – which recently named their new headquarters after him – and you begin to understand the depth of his commitment to this region.

Boss’s leadership in St. Anthony Park has been responsible for creating and sustaining many of the institutions that make this neighborhood a beloved urban village which continues to invoke passionate support for education, arts and the environment. As the fourth recipient of this honor (last year’s inaugural award went to three founding members of the St. Anthony Park Association) Boss takes his rightful place among those neighbors who have truly made a lasting difference to the quality of this community’s life.

W. Andrew Boss has been and continues to be an inspiration for St. Anthony Park and all those who understand the importance of the foundational values of community and the role they play in a vibrant and prosperous society.