Woman’s Passion for Community Compels Her to Serve

An Army brat, Liz Wagner said the experience helped her learn what it meant to help other people and to serve.

When her father was in Vietnam she would see how her mother helped other Army wives in different ways.

“I learned so much from my military upbringing,” she said.

When her father, a Baltimore native, retired, the family moved to Glen Burnie where she attended Lindale Middle and then Andover High School.

Her military upbringing and passion for serving others led Wagner to participate in endless activities where she gives back to the Glen Burnie community through church, the schools and her job as a community representative to Maryland Sen. Ed DeGrange (D-Glen Burnie)—a job she said is an honor to do.

“It’s so easy to represent him because he’s such a family-oriented, hands on person,” she said. “Anytime I go anywhere I try to represent him the best way possible.”

DeGrange said Wagner, who has worked with him since 1999, is a strong advocate to represent him in the community. She listens to people, reports their issues back to his office and works to get them resolved.

“Liz is such a strong advocate for helping people,” DeGrange said. “There’s no one she won’t help whether it’s through church or through my office. … Volunteerism has basically been her life.”

Wagner attends the meetings of many organizations representing DeGrange, including sitting on the business advisory boards of both and high schools.

“Liz is a wonderful, wonderful person,” said Bill Heiser, principal at North County. He is in his second year as principal. “She was likely the first parent—as well as community leader—that I met when I got here. Since day one I could see she wants to help the school and the community become better.”

Through the business advisory boards, and partnering with —the church she’s attended since 1988, Wagner has worked to renovate teacher lounges at area schools.

“Now we have one of the best teacher lounges in the state,” Heiser said of the renovations made by Wagner and ALC. “[Wagner] initiated the whole thing and mobilized the volunteers to get it done.”

Also through ALC, Wagner is known to be instrumental in the annual Take Back Our Streets holiday-sharing event where new, unwrapped toys are collected and then distributed to disadvantaged children throughout the county.

, a moment of overwhelming compassion caused Wagner's eyes to fill with tears.

"It's really huge and special to be able to help the people that need to be helped," Wagner said.

Extremely humble, Wagner said her upbringing, her affiliation with the church and the example of her father-in-law, Michael Wagner, have caused her to be community-minded.

“It’s really the heart of [ALC Head Pastor Dan Mucci]—his passion and vision and what he is building is just an inspiration,” she said. “To be part of a church that believes in outreach is really just what inspired me.”