Community Spotlight: Heli Hatanpaa-Wetzel
- May 7, 2024
- 1 min read
Nordic Northwest’s Community Spotlights celebrate the valuable contributions, enthusiasm, and achievements of members in the Nordic community. Thank you to all of our dedicated and supportive community members!
Heli joined Nordic Northwest three years ago, after retiring from a career in teaching and moving from California to Oregon. With more free time on her hands, she dove right into volunteering in the Nordic community.
Heli, our Nordic Cuisine (formerly known as Cook & Eat) Committee Chair, also volunteered with the Friday Night Lecture Series Committee and generously donated her time to ad hoc event assistance. When asked about favorite Nordic foods and food combinations, gravlax & schnapps as well as Karelian pasties definitely are on top of her list!
Born in Pori, Finland, Heli later lived in Turku, married her teenage sweetheart “many moons ago”, and majored in English Philology at the University of Finland. She worked as a foreign language teacher for English, Swedish & German at her former secondary school. After moving to California, she got a degree in Special Education and taught in California for 21 years until her retirement. She is currently the president of Finlandia Foundation Columbia-Pacific Chapter and also helps out at Nordic Finn Ware. Stop by and say hi next time you are at Nordia House!
Thank you for donating your time, Heli! We are so very grateful for your most wonderful support and enthusiasm.
What a wonderful spotlight on Heli Hatanpaa-Wetzel and her inspiring journey from Finland to Oregon. It’s amazing to see how she has dedicated her time to strengthening the Nordic community through cuisine, cultural programs, and volunteer leadership. Her passion for sharing traditions like gravlax, schnapps, and Karelian pasties truly keeps Nordic heritage alive. Community stories like this show how important connection and shared culture are, something we also see in online communities built around shared interests such as null brawl, where people come together over common passions. Thank you for highlighting such a meaningful contribution.
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What a wonderful spotlight—thank you, Heli, for everything you do for Nordic Northwest and the wider Finnish community! Your dedication, warmth, and enthusiasm truly shine through in all these roles. From Nordic Cuisine to lectures and events, you’ve helped build such a welcoming space. Wishing you many more joyful adventures ahead—both in the Nordic community and the occasional Escape Road–style challenge where every turn leads somewhere exciting
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