Local Hero: Lowell Hoxie Quietly Makes Life Better In Pleasanton

PLEASANTON, CA — When times are tough, heroes emerge. We all know someone who's making a difference right now as we live through unprecedented and changing times. Here at Patch, we've launched an initiative to help recognize these heroes making a difference in their communities. We’re working to let all your neighbors know about these outstanding people and their stories. This submission comes from Ken Mano who nominated his friend Lowell Hoxie of Pleasanton.

Local hero’s full name Lowell Hoxie

Local hero’s Patch Pleasanton

How do you know the local hero? Church and various service projects

What does the local hero do? Works for Sunol School District Maintenance

Why do you believe the local hero should be recognized or honored?

I would like to nominate Lowell Hoxie for the Local Heros award. Lowell is a long-time resident of Sunol, he is a member of the Foothill Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he is the Director of Maintenance and Operations for the Sunol Unified School District. Lowell loves to barbeque, and owns his own barbeque trailer with all the equipment much of it he built himself and he spends much of his time barbequing for many groups in the Tri-Valley and even the entire bay area. For over 25 years he has been cooking for youth and non-profit groups, never charging for his time, the groups only pay for their food and supplies.

It started in 1995 when he volunteered to cook for a Boy Scout Jamboree. At the bi-annual East Bay StandDown which was held prior to Covid, an encampment for homeless veterans, Lowell brings his trailer and equipment and barbeques the dinner for 500 veterans and volunteers for one of the evening meals and volunteers his time to provide these meals. After the meal he even leaves his BBQ trailer at the event for the mess hall staff to use for other meals.

Each Memorial Day he brings his equipment to an annual breakfast commemorating the holiday and honoring the military and veterans, cooking up plenty of pancakes, eggs and bacon for those attending. Sunol Glen school has a fundraising BBQ event and people come from all over to get his tri-tip sandwiches. The success of this fundraiser is in large part due to Lowell’s willingness to cook and donate his time and equipment.

Every July, he barbeques for an annual Emergency Preparedness Fair in the city of Danville, serving hundreds of tri-tip sandwiches. He even goes to Gilroy to an annual Boy Scout event fundraising event. The local LDS Church has an annual pioneer day celebration and Lowell is always there cooking the meat for about 500 people at this event. He is an active member of the 4H and is always helping at the Alameda County Fair and even after a StandDown event, took his BBQ equipment directly from there to a 4H event.

Lowell says “it does get a little tiring, but as long as I’m able to do it physically, I’ll just keep doing it”. Lowell is soft spoken, always cheerful and willing to help and extremely efficient with his home-made barbeque equipment.

What's one thing you want everyone to know about the local hero? He is very humble and kind Thank you for all you do, Lowell Hoxie!

This content is brought to our community in partnership with T-Mobile. Know someone making a difference in town?

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