Last year, there were many disruptions to my sense of "community" – and this year was more of the same. Between the fall of twitter, the lack of in-person events, and frankly growing a little weary of the Q & A game, I don't really have a fair grasp of the community work people out there are doing.

In previous years, I had gobs and gobs of opportunities to see people in action, taking their respective spheres of influence by storm:

Where I have spent time, mainly on Meta Stack Exchange, there has been one standout who happened to be a co-worker as well (up until the most recent layoff, anyway). And while I usually wait until the end of the year, it seems more timely to announce this year's recipient now:

Catija (Catherine Kuck)

I will borrow some words from a former Stacker:

I truly appreciated working with Catija; she was every developer's dream! While I was working on the public website, I had the pleasure of working with Catija as our liaison with the community. She had such intimate knowledge of the community, its members, their tools and how they used them, and their biggest asks. Saying she worked magic when interacting with the community would be no exaggeration.

She has always navigated that place – and, more importantly, the relationship between the company and the community – like a champ and a true professional.

Meta is not always the friendliest place.