After hearing that she was nominated, Bott said she thought, “to be in competition with someone who does so many wonderful things. He’s just a great man. I don’t need the title.” Winkler had a similar reaction. “I just felt she deserved it,” he said.

In response, the Pascack Valley Chamber did something it had never done before – named two Citizens of the Year.

Bott and Winkler have known each other for over 50 years through their church, Zion Lutheran, and when they talk of their fellow honoree, the respect they hold for each other shines through.

“Talk about service,” Bott said. “He is always hustling and doing something for anyone in need. To share that with him is a great honor.” Winkler said he was “overwhelmed” when he heard the news and said, “I think it’s fabulous.”

Each has dedicated so much of their time and energy to helping people in need.

Winkler first realized his love of helping others while working in his father’s grocery store as a child. A life-long resident of Hillsdale, Winkler, 82, would deliver groceries to people in town using his wagon. “It meant so much to me that I was able to help people,” Winkler said.

Winkler’s father died at an early age. The store closed in 1939 and a year later the family lost their home, moving in with family friends, the Marras.

In 1943, Winkler joined the Navy, and served overseas until the end of the war in 1946. While Winkler was away, his mother became very ill and several firemen gave blood, saving her life. Winkler said his mother always told him never to forget what people did to help their family in their time of need.

It was a lesson Winkler took to heart.

Since then he has been involved in projects great and small to improve the lives of people in the community. In 1947, he became a volunteer fireman and later became Chief of the Fire Department in 1956. He worked on the committee to build Pascack Valley Hospital , going house to house to raise the funds.

He has maintained the fireman’s and veteran’s monuments for the past 30 years and most recently, in 1994, Winkler formed the Pascack Brook Fishing Foundation that works to raise money to stock the brook with trout and hold a yearly fishing contest for children in the Pascack Valley.

Winkler even has a street named after him, “ Winker Way,” in honor of his work to restore the Hillsdale Train Station.

Though he appreciates the accolades, Winkler said “If it wasn’t for all the people that helped me I could’ve never accomplished what I did.”

Bott’s passion for helping the elderly and the sick began 16 years ago while working as a volunteer for Hospice of Bergen Community Healthcare, an affiliate of Pascack Valley Hospital , eventually becoming a paid employee. “Everyone celebrates birth,” Bott says, “but end of life is also very precious. It’s a sad time, ’cause we lose the person but I believe they begin a new life so it’s a complete cycle. For me it’s a privilege and an honor to be present at that time in someone’s life. It’s so sacred.”

After five years of working for the hospice, Bott decided her church should do more to help the elderly in the congregation. She began Homebound Ministry, a program that assigns a volunteer sponsor to visit members of the church who are physically unable to come to the service to pray with them and keep them informed of what’s happening so “they still feel part of the congregation.”

Within homebound ministry, there is an “adopt a grandparent program,” in which homebound elderly members are “adopted” by children at the Lutheran school day school. Each class is assigned a homebound member and their “grandparent” stays with the class from first grade until eighth grade graduation.

Since Pascack Valley Hospital closed, Bott has been working on raising money to open a not-for profit hospice to serve Pascack Valley with fellow founders Wendy Megerman, Pat Hutzelman, and Dr. Alan Israel. The Westwood United Methodist Church donated an office for them to use, and many people have donated supplies and money. “The response has been amazing,” Bott said. “People have been coming out of the woodwork to help us.”

In order to be approved by Medicare, the hospice needs to treat 10 patients for a minimum of three months, something Bott says will cost approximately $300,000. The hospice is hoping to meet that total by the end of summer in order to begin accepting patients in October.

Bott said being named Citizen of the Year is one of the greatest honors she has ever received, but said her work is something she doesn’t feel she needs to be recognized for. “I’m here to help people in need, that’s my purpose,” Bott explained. “To go out at one or two in the morning to help someone in need, that’s what I’m supposed to do. I don’t like a lot of limelight.”

The Citizens of the Year will be honored at a May 14 dinner at Florentine Gardens in River Vale.

Megan Burrow's e-mail address is burrow@northjersey.com.